Refreshing Group Policy using GPUpdate

Windows 2000/2003 Active Directory (AD) support Group Policy (GP) for configuring user and computer settings. If you have recently modified such Group Policy settings, you do not always need to log off or restart the computer to apply them.

Windows includes the GPUpdate utility for refreshing Group Policy manually. To refresh both computer and user policies, just run the utility from the command prompt:

gpupdate

To force all policies to be reapplied:

gpupdate /force

GPUpdate retrieves the latest policy settings from the domain controller and applies any changes. This is especially useful when testing new Group Policy Objects (GPOs).

Administrators can verify changes immediately without waiting for the normal background refresh interval.