Creating and Editing Group Policy Objects (GPOs)

Creating a Group Policy Object for your Organizational Unit (OU)

1. Open the custom Microsoft Management Console (MMC) for your OU.
   
   
2. Right-click on your OU and select Properties.
   
   
3. In the OU Properties dialog box, select the Group Policy tab .
   
   
4. Click the New button to create a new GPO that will be pushed to all the computer accounts located in your OU.
   
   
5. Rename the GPO to suit your purposes.
   
   

Editing your OU’s GPO

If you are not already at the Group Policy tab for your OU, follow steps 1-3 from Creating a GPO for your OU.

1. Click to highlight the GPO you have created.
   
   
2. Click the Edit button. This will bring up a Group Policy window where you can make your desired changes.
   
   
3. The default refresh interval for GPOs is 60-120 minutes (90 +/- 30 to prevent too many computers from trying to refresh at the same time). To manually enforce the GPO, either:
   • Restart the computer.
     Note: Logging off and logging on only updates the User Configuration portion of the GPO. The Computer Configuration portion is not updated.
     
     Or
     
     
   • Run one of the following commands.
     • In Windows XP:
       • To update both machine policies and user policies, enter: gpupdate
       • To update only machine policies, enter: gpupdate /target:Computer
       • To update only user policies, enter: gpupdate /target:User
       
       
       
       Note: By default gpupdate will only load changes to the GPO. To refresh the entire GPO regardless of changes made, add the /force switch to the end of the command.
     
     
     • In Windows 2000:
       • To update machine policy, enter: secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy
       • To update user policy, enter: secedit /refreshpolicy user_policy
       
       
       
       Note: By default secedit will only load changes to the GPO. To refresh the entire GPO regardless of changes made, add the /enforce switch to the end of the command.