Q: How can I enforce the application of machine Group Policy Object (GPO) settings on a Windows client? Are there any differences here between Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2008?

A: On a computer running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 (and R2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows XP, you can enforce the application of machine GPO settings by typing the following command (make sure that you're doing this in the security context of an administrator account and that you replace <computer_name> with the correct machine name):

gpupdate /target:<computer_name> /force

On a computer running Windows 2000, you must use the following secedit command to achieve the same thing:

secedit /refreshpolicy machine_policy