How To Force Group Policy Update In Windows?

Group policy is used to apply settings for a specific group of users, computers, or ou . Group policy updates can take some time even in some cases it may not apply as we expected. Group policy updates are managed via the GPUpdate.exe in every system. By using this command the group policy update can be forced. Also, PowerShell provides the Invoke-GPUpdate command in order to manage and force group policy updates.

Force Group Policy Update via MS-DOS GPUpdate.exe

The gpupdate.exe is used for a long time in Windows operating systems. Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and modern Windows servers provide this tool by default. The gpupdate.exe can be executed via the MS-DOS command prompt. We will opent the command prompt via the Start menu by typing cmd.exe like below.

Open MS-DOS Command Line

In the MS-DOS command line use the following command where the /force is used to force gpupdate even there are minor issues.

gpupdate.exe /force

When the update is successful we will get the following message.

Force Group Policy Update

Some updated policies may require a system reboot with the “Center User policies are enabled that can only run during logon. OK to log off ‘Y/N’?” message. Just type Y and press enter or simply reboot your system in order to apply the updated policies.

Force Group Policy Update via PowerShell Invoke-GPUpdate

PowerShell provides the Invoke-GPUpdate command or cmdlet which is specifically created to manage Group Policies. First we will open the PowerShell command line interface via the Start Menu by typing “powershell” like below.

Open PowerShell

We will execute the Invoke-GPUpdate command with the -Force parameter like below.

Invoke-GPUpdate -Force

Alternatively, we can update the remote windows computer group policy by forcing it. We will provide the -Computer parameter and remote computer hostname or IP address we want to update.

Invoke-GPUpdate -Force -Computer 192.168.10.10

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