GP setting to disable auto setup of network devices?

One of the real annoyances in Windows 10 is that by default it
automatically seeks out network devices to set up. This can be disabled
through the control panel, but I've seen the setting revert back after
updates come in. Then on any kind of sizable network you wind up with
a crazy amount of broadcast traffic and dozens of network printers and
other devices show up to confuse users. This might be convenient at home,
but not what you want on a business network!

In a domain environment is there a group policy setting that can be
pushed out to make sure this "feature" is turned off and stays turned
off on the workstations? I've been doing web searches but not found
anything definitive yet.

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Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

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Roger Blake wrote:

One of the real annoyances in Windows 10 is that by default it
automatically seeks out network devices to set up. This can be disabled
through the control panel, but I've seen the setting revert back after
updates come in. Then on any kind of sizable network you wind up with
a crazy amount of broadcast traffic and dozens of network printers and
other devices show up to confuse users. This might be convenient at home,
but not what you want on a business network!

In a domain environment is there a group policy setting that can be
pushed out to make sure this "feature" is turned off and stays turned
off on the workstations? I've been doing web searches but not found
anything definitive yet.

All policies are registry settings. By using a registry monitor, you
could change the setting in Control Panel, take a snapshot of the
registry, change the setting again, take another registry snapshot, and
compare the two to find out what is the registry setting affected by the
change. Then change the setting in Control Panel to however you want
it, use regedit.exe, and export the key containing the policy setting.
That will create a .reg file you decide where to save. In your Startup
folder, add the command:

regedit.exe /s regfile

That will force the registry setting after you log into your Windows
account. Even if you log into a corporate domain where they push their
policies on login, you can still change those policies via registry
edits as long as you run regedit.exe (or reg.exe) under a Windows
account that has local administrator privileges.

Obviously the registry setting is not going to change until you login to
run the startup entry. However, no matter whether an update says you
need to reboot or not, I always do a reboot. It has been shown
repeatedly that updates that do not prompt for a reboot often do need
one. A mixed state (between prior and updated state) is often unstable.
You could also create your own shortcut to run on-demand the regedit
command, or even add it to Task Scheduler to run multiple times per day.

On 2019-03-06, Wolf K wrote:
AFAIK, this can only be done with the Enterprise Win 10. I infer that
all workstations must be running that edition.

I was afraid that might be the case. It's pretty evident that Microsoft
wants to push businesses that have more than a handful of PCs into
Windows 10 Enterprise, thus paying MS in perpetuity to run the operating
system.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

NSA sedition and treason -- http://www.DeathToNSAthugs.com
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------