You can skip the Group Policy Editor if you follow the guide as well minus the group policy editor check. that's just an extra safety measure. Basically, you disabled Windows Defender from the program itself, then uncheck all the startup entries from Autoruns. What you can do also is when you run O&O ShutUp10, it has an option to disable Windows Defender as well so that's your extra measure for Home Editions but as Mr. Fox said, you can get a Pro key for very cheap. Pro gives you so much more benefits over Home, I wouldn't even consider using Windows 10 if it was gonna be the Home Edition.
Why choose Windows Pro over Home?
So you have access to the Group Policy Editor
As you may be well aware, Windows 10 although boasts great support for new hardware and is required to make the most out of your new hardware especially newer CPUs which are not supported on previous OSes like Windows 7 anymore, it has its quirks and privacy invasion like automatically sending your keystrokes, displaying ads, telemetry, and much more.
While there are many utilities out there such as O&O ShutUp10 that help you eliminate most if not all of the nasty stuff, the Home Edition lacks one very important feature which is the Group Policy Editor. Think of it as flying on an airplane, do you want to be the passenger or the pilot in control? That's exactly what the Group Policy Editor enables you to do, be in control of how your OS behaves.
Examples of things you can disable / enable easily with the Group Policy Editor:
1) Turn off file history completely (this is a useless feature which Microsoft is phasing out in its next build but you can still disable it now)
2) Disable / Prevent your computer from joining a Home Group (Home Group is a crippled way of sharing files that rarely works if ever, one is better off manually selecting the folders that he wants to share and giving them appropriate permissions by right clicking on that folder and navigating to the Sharing tab)
3) Disable Windows DVR (Gameplay Recording Mode). If you have that enabled which is the default state, then Steam warns you that it may hamper your game play/performance so its best to turn it off completely using the Group PolicyEditor). You can do this in the Home Edition but it requires a lot of complex registry edits which are time consuming. There are better tools to record game play such as nVIDIA's Shadow Play or better yet, a program by Mirillis called "Action!"
4) Turn off Microsoft Consumer Services
5) Turn off Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program
6) Completely disable Windows Defender and not have it re-enable itself if you are wanting to install your own AntiVirus since Windows Defender bogs down the system's performance by as much as 36% according to the latest AV Comparatives Performance Test:
http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart1.php?chart=chart4&year=2017&month=10&sort=1&zoom=2
7) Disable Windows Driver Updates through Windows Updates
8) Turn off the Windows Explorer Notification about new apps that can handle new extensions. By default, every time you install a new application that can handle an extension, let's say, a new video player or an internet browser, etc. you get an annoying popup telling you that you have installed a new application that can handle these extensions
9) Disable Windows Error Reporting, that never does any good and only eats a lot of space writing the details of background errors. Microsoft has never in its history fixed any of these reported errors so why keep this useless service enabled on your system and creating unnecessary writes to your SSD?
10) Disable unwanted features such as Windows Ink, biometrical features, etc.
11) Disable automatic downloading of map updates (who needs map updates on a laptop? this is not a GPS device /phone)
12) Turn off Work Folders (this is used in corporate environments and not needed for home or power users)
and much more, these are just some of the things you can control with the Group Policy Editor.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
