GPO refresh

[kgrech]

Do GPO's get re-applied when a PC restarts, even if no change in the GPO was done? Was this "feature" available and changed recently? We have a particular policy that empties the local admin group of the desktops. Our support staff recalls that when restarting the PC, this policy used to get called. We have recently replaced our DCs from 2003 to 2008. The desktops are XP.

[trekker]

If all you did was upgrade your DC's from 2003 to 2008 (or 2008R2), there shouldn't be a difference in how an XP client is processing Group Policy. Specifically how are you removing accounts from the local Administrators? There are multiple ways to do it: scripts, GP Preferences, etc. The first thing I always do when something doesn't run correctly is to check the Event Log to see if there are errors. It is possible that the policy has a problem. What happens if you run a gpupdate /force, does the policy run then? Has this policy been changed recently? Did you check that all of your DC's (including sysvol) are replicating after the upgrade?

[brad]

1 - Computer and User config GPO's are applied when a computer is rebooted.

2 - A User config GPO is applied when the user logs on.

3. Computer and User config GPO's are applied upon the next Group Policy Refresh Interval which by default is 90 minutes with another 30 minutes possible on top of that

4. You can always manually run the gpupdate command at any time to apply both computer and user config GPOs.

Thanks for using GPAnswers.

Brad Rudisail - MICTP
Technical Support Specialist for GPAnswers and PolicyPak