Would you like to learn how to configure a group policy to enable the controlled folder access feature? In this tutorial, we will show you how to enable the Windows Defender feature named controlled folder access using a GPO.
• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7
Equipment list
The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.
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Tutorial GPO – Controlled folder access using Windows Defender
On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.
Create a new group policy.
Enter a name for the new group policy.
In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.
On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.
Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.
On the group policy editor screen, expand the Computer configuration folder and locate the following item.
Access the folder named Controlled folder access.
Enable the option named Configure controlled folder access.
Enable the option named Configure protected folders.
Click on the Show button and enter a list of folders.
By default, the following folders are protected.
Enable the option named Configure allowed applications.
Click on the Show button and enter a list of additional applications allowed to access the folders.
To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.
Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.
Windows Defender – Controlled folder access
On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.
In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.
After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.
During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.
In our example, we enabled the Windows Defender feature named Controlled folder access on all domain computers using a GPO.
