How to force Group Policy Update in Windows 10

If you want to force a Group Policy Update in Windows 10, you will have to make use of the built-in GPUPDATE.exe command-line tool. This tool lets you refresh Group Policy manually.

How to force a Group Policy Update

By default Group Policy gets updated in the background every 90 minutes, after a change is recorded in the Active Object. But you can change the Group Policy Refresh Interval or refresh it manually.

To run this tool, open an elevated Command Prompt, type the following, and hit Enter:

To force apply only the changed policies, type or copy-paste the following command, and hit Enter:

gpupdate

To force refresh or update all policies, run the command, and hit Enter:

gpupdate /force

After this, you will see the following message:

Updating Policy…

User Policy update has completed successfully/Computer Policy update has completed successfully.

Force a Remote Group Policy Refresh

In Windows 10/8, you can remotely refresh Group Policy settings by using the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC).

Alternatively, you can use the Invoke-GPUpdate Windows PowerShell cmdlet to refresh Group Policy for a set of computers.

I hope you find this small tip useful.

TIP: This post will show you how to disable Group Policy Refresh while the computer is in use.