Periodically as part of troubleshooting an issue, IT may ask you to refresh the group policies on your Windows computer. This article describes how to do that.

Windows 10

Right click on the Start Menu Button and another menu appears. Click on either Command prompt or command prompt (Admin) to open the CMD window.

On newer versions of Windows 10, you may see an option for Windows PowerShell instead of Command Prompt. The two are interchangeable for the purposes of these instructions.

Step 2) Run gpupdate /force

Within the Command Line window, type gpupdate /force and then press Enter on your keyboard. The line "Updating Policy..." should appear in the Command Line window below where you just typed.

Step 3) Restart Your Computer

When the update has finished, you should be presented with a prompt to either logoff or restart your computer. Press N to reject those prompts and then manually restart your computer. It's best to completely restart the computer, and it is slightly faster to reboot manually than to reboot through the Command Line window.

Sometimes you will not be presented with a prompt to restart or logoff after the update. However, you should still restart your computer unless otherwise instructed by IT.