Using SECEDIT to Force a Group Policy Refresh Immediately

Changes to a group policy object are not immediately imposed upon the target systems, but rather are applied in accordance with the currently valid group policy refresh interval, which uses random factorization to ensure a somewhat balanced load on domain controllers. For additional information about how this operates, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: This can be an issue when you are attempting to troubleshoot any setting configured using group policy objects. As a workaround, you can use the SECEDIT command-line tool to impose group policy object settings upon a target workstation immediately.

You can use Secedit.exe with the /REFRESHPOLICY switch to impose group policy object settings upon a target workstation immediately as follows:

• SECEDIT /REFRESHPOLICY MACHINE_POLICY /ENFORCE: Immediately imposes group policy object settings located within the "machine" node of relevant group policy objects.
• SECEDIT /REFRESHPOLICY USER_POLICY /ENFORCE: Immediate imposes group policy object settings located within the "User" node of the relevant group policy objects.

NOTE: secedit /refreshpolicy only updates the Group Policy settings for the secedit client side extension. It will not refresh any other settings.