I encountered GPO Error message “The system cannot find the file path specified.” when editing Group Policy for Default Domain Policy or Default Domain Controller Policy.
Upon investigation, the GPO policy folder in SYSVOL is also missing.
Issues
Editing GPO Policy failed with error message The system cannot find the path specified
Investigations
GPO Policy is stored in %SYSVOL%\domain\Policies{GPO_GUID} folder and if the GPO GUID folder including subfolder (User and Machine) is missing, GPO will raise this error.
Solution 1:
There are two ways:
- If you have multi Domain Controller, you can restore the content from another DC
- Restore from backup
Solution 2:
Rebuild the missing GPO Policy folder structure
Steps:
2-1. Open Active Directory Users and Computers
2-2. Add Display Name in view column
2-3. Enable Advanced Features
2-3. Navigate to [Domain]\System\Policies
2-4. Right Click on affected GPO policy to copy GUID including curly bracket
2-5. Navigate to your Domain SYSVOL folder (%SYSVOL%\domain\Policies)
2-6. Create New Folder for GPO Policy:
- Create New GPO Policy Folder and rename it with GPO GUID
- Create two new subfolder (Machine and User) under GPO GUID folder
2-7. Edit GPO Policy from Group Policy Management Console
Very good, thanks! My user folder disappeared but all else was intact. This fixed my issue.
Thank you so much!
Nice. Helped me. Thanks!
Thanks, that was incredibly helpful!