When does user configuration apply?

Question

When does user configuration group policies apply? If it applies only during login does it mean that when the user logs off it will disappear or if no user logs in it will not apply?

Answer 1

Hello @Janus Bariñan ,

Thank you for posting here.

Here are the answers for your references.

Q1: When does user configuration group policies apply?
A1: For user configuration group policies, to refresh GPO settings, there are several methods.

If the corresponding user is already successfully logged in:

the user can run gpupdate /force command to reshresh/apply GPO settings immediately (method 1).

Or the user can sign out and sign in the user account to reshresh/apply GPO settings (method 2).

By default, user Group Policy is refreshed/applied in the background every 90 minutes, with a random offset of 0 to 30 minutes (method 3).

But for this 90 minutes and 0 to 30 minutes, we can configure GPO to customize refresh interval.
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy > Set Group Policy refresh interval for users

Modify Group Policy Refresh Interval for Computers
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/31623.modify-group-policy-refresh-interval-for-computers.aspx

For several special user configuration GPO settings, such as folder redirection, drive map, script (logon script and logoff script) and disk quota, the user must sign out and sign in the user account again to refresh/apply these GPO settings (method 4).

Q2: If it applies only during login does it mean that when the user logs off it will disappear or if no user logs in it will not apply?
A2: If the machine is always connected to domain network and there is no any change on the applied GPO settings, when the user logs off it will not disappear, when the user logs in again, the GPO settings last applied keep there and these GPO settings will not be refreshed/applied again.

Hope the information above is helpful.

Should you have any question or concern, please feel free to let us know.

Best Regards,
Daisy Zhou

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