Refresh Policies on Entire domain

[Jared Bassett]

I need to make changes to the domain policy, and need to have them refresh
as soon as possible. Is there any way I can force it to refresh on every
computer in the domain even while the users are logged in? I know I can go
to each machine and force an update, but that would take way too long to hit
each machine.
Thanks,
-Jared

 

[Ken B]

IIRC, policies refresh on domain computers every, which was it... 45 or 60
minutes plus 0-30 minutes (randomly chosen). Unless the policy is something
that gets applied at startup (like a script or software install), once you
make your change and allow for replication, domain computers should get the
updates in a maximum of 90 minutes. If they require restarts, you could
probably script the usage of "shutdown" (included on XP and 2003) to
computers you have administrative rights on. Just be mindful of VPN users
and remote offices which might take a little while for the policy change to
replicate to them.

HTH

Ken