Why your Windows group policy doesn't take effect immediately

Windows periodically refreshes group policy settings throughout the network. On client computers, this is done by default every 90 minutes, with a randomized offset of plus or minus 30 minutes. When you make a change to a group policy, you may need to wait two hours (90 minutes plus a 30 minute offset) before you see any changes on the client computers. Even then, some changes will not take effect until after a reboot of the computer.

You can change the default values by modifying the settings in Administrative Templates. You cannot schedule a specific time to apply a Group Policy Object (GPO) to a client computer. Software installation and folder redirection settings in a GPO are processed only when a computer starts (computer-based policies) or when the user logs in (user-based policies), rather than at a particular time.

To force your Windows computer to check for group policy changes, you can use the gpupdate /force command to trigger the updating process. This compares the currently applied GPO to the GPO that is located on the domain controllers. If nothing has changed since the last time the GPO was applied, then the GPO is skipped.

If Windows accepts the request, it will display the following message:

Updating Policy...

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

For more about this command, from the Start menu, select Help and Support, and then search on group policy management.