Local policy not applied

[Jan Israelsson]

Hi,
I'm trying to change the ScreenSaveTimeOut value for a local GPO by
replacing the %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\GroupPolicy\User\Registry.pol file
with a new one that has the correct value configured, after this I use
gpupdate to apply the change. The problem is that the change only
applies to the local administrator account and not to other users, I
havce also tried gpupdate /force with no luck. When I open gpedit it
looks just right, the parameter shows the new value. The only way to
really apply the change to all users is to open gpedit and open any
parameter and then click OK (without changing anything!), and having
done that the change is applied to all users. Of course this is not an
option since I would like to distribute this change to thousands of
computers. Does anyone have any ideas why this happens and how I can
make work, since gpupdate don't seem to work.

Please advice.
Regards Jan Israelsson.

 

[Derek Melber [MVP]]

Just curious why you modified the file and not the GPO? My guess is that the
permissions on the Registry.pol file are not correct, since you changed the
file, not the GPO setting through a GPO editor.