The Group Policy in Windows allows administrators to set and enforce settings on their computer systems. By default Group Policy gets updated in the background every 90 minutes, after a change is recorded in an active object. But if you wish you can change Group Policy Refresh Interval using the Group Policy Editor on Windows 11/10. You can either decrease the refresh interval or increase it.
How to change Group Policy Refresh Interval for Windows 11/10 computers
You can change the Group Policy Refresh Interval for Windows 11/10 in the following methods.
- Using the Group Policy Editor
- Using the Registry Editor
Let’s get into the details of each method.
1] Using the Group Policy Editor
To get started, open the Run command box, type gpedit.msc, and hit Enter to open the Local Group Policy Editor. Navigate to the following setting:
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy
Now in the right pane, double-click on Set Group Policy Refresh Interval for computers to open its Properties box. This policy setting specifies how often the Group Policy for computers is updated while the computer is in use in the background. In addition to background updates, Group Policy for the computer is always updated when the system starts or a user logs in.
As we mentioned earlier, by default, Group Policy is updated in the background every 90 minutes, with a random offset of 0 to 30 minutes. But if you Enable this setting, you can specify an update rate from 0 to 64,800 minutes or 45 days. If you select 0 minutes, the computer tries to update the Group Policy every 7 seconds. To avoid performance degradation, you should not set it to a low figure.
If you do not want Group Policy to be updated while the computer is in use, you will have to configure the Turn-off background refresh policy – and if the Disable background refresh of Group Policy policy is enabled, this policy is ignored.
The Set Group Policy refresh interval for computers policy also lets you specify how much the actual update interval varies – the offset interval for computers. The number you type in the random time box sets the upper limit for the range of variance.
2] Using the Registry Editor
To change the Group Policy Refresh Interval for computers, navigate to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
Create a DWORD GroupPolicyRefreshTime and give it a value between 0 to 64800.
To change the offset interval for computers, navigate to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System
Create a DWORD GroupPolicyRefreshTimeOffset and give it a value between 0 to 1440.
Also read: Failed to open the Group Policy Object on this computer
How do I change my GPO refresh interval?
You can change the Group Policy Object Refresh interval using the Group Policy Editor or the Registry Editor. By default, they are refreshed every 90 minutes in the background while you use your computer. Navigate to Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy on Group Policy Editor and change the refresh interval by clicking on Set Group Policy Refresh Interval for computers.
How do I refresh Group Policy in Windows 11?
You do not need to refresh Group Policy in Windows 11. It is done automatically for every 90 minutes. If you have disabled it or changed the refresh interval, you can refresh the Group Policy in Windows 11 in the Command Prompt. Open the elevated Command Prompt, type gpupdate /force, and press Enter. It will refresh the Group policy.
Related read: How to check the Group Policy applied on a Windows computer
