By default the Windows 10 operating system will begin syncing your settings if you’re signed in with a Microsoft account; however, you can also personalize the sync settings individually from the Settings app or turn it on or off completely as well.
If on the other hand you would prefer to enable or disable the sync settings rather than just turning it on or off, then you can do that two separate ways: either from the Local Group Policy Editor or the Registry Editor. Disabling Sync Your Settings means that you or others who use the same group policy will not be able to change the sync settings from the Settings application any longer.
Those who choose to enable or disable from the Group Policy can only do so in a compatible version of Windows whereas everyone can enable or disable sync your settings from the Registry.
The following tutorial demonstrates how to enable and disable The Sync Your Settings settings when you’re using a version of the Windows 10 operating system.
An example of what the Settings app when Sync Your Settings is disabled:
Method One: How to Enable/Disable Sync Your Settings in Local Group Policy Editor
Here is how you can enable and disable Syn your settings from the Group Policy settings:
Note: The Local Group Policy Editor is a feature found only in Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Enterprise, and Windows 10 Education editions.
1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor application.
2. In the console tree of the snap-in, navigate through to the following folders:
Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Sync your settings
3. In the right pane of Sync your settings, double-click on the Do not sync policy. (click to enlarge screenshot below)
4. From the Do not sync policy window, choose between Not Configured (to enable Sync your settings), Enabled (to disable Sync your settings), and Disabled (to enable Sync your settings) and then click on the OK button to confirm the policy changes.
Note: if you choose to enable the Do not sync policy, you also have an option to Allow users to turn syncing on that you can check or uncheck from the options window.
You can now close the Local Group Policy Editor app and continue using your computer if you like.
Method Two: How to Enable/Disable Sync Your Settings in Registry Editor
1. Open the Registry Editor app by pressing the Windows logo + R keys to open Run and then typing regedit and clicking OK, or by typing regedit into Search.
2. In the console tree of the snap-in, navigate through to the following keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SettingSync\Groups
3. Under the Groups key is where you can find lots of subkeys related to the sync settings.
4. Select the subkey that you want to enable or disable the sync settings for—i.e., click on BrowserSettings if you want to change the sync settings for the browser settings, so forth.
5. From the right pane of the selected subkey, double-click on the Enabled value. (click to enlarge screenshot below)
6. Change the value to 0 to disable Sync your settings or change the value to 1 if you want to enable it.
You can now close the Registry Editor app and continue using your computer if you like.
That’s all.