Article Written 6-28-2005

Application Pausing and Screen Blanking caused by Active Directory User Group Policy Refresh Interval.

Introduction: Application Pausing and screen blanking can be caused by Active Directory User Group Policy refresh. YES, thats right, Microsoft warns of this in the user group policy "Group Policy Refresh Interval for Users" Explain tab.

Here is the warning:

Tip: Consider notifying users that their policy is updated periodically so that they recognize the signs of a policy update. When Group Policy is updated, the Windows desktop is refreshed; it flickers briefly and closes open menus. Also, restrictions imposed by Group Policies, such as those that limit the programs a user can run, might interfere with tasks in progress.

Circumstances in which this can happen: If User group policy refresh is set to the default interval of 90 minutes. Some Applications can pause or screen blank for upto 1 minute.

Yes, I am serious about this, but not all applications are sensitive to the policy refresh. We have a Visual Basic application with a very fast database backend, and it happened to us.

Recommended Group Policy settings to avoid this in your environment.

1. In environments where No Override is turned on, set the User Policy refresh interval in the default domain policy to 8 hours or more.

2. In environments where No Override is turned off, set the User Policy refresh interval in the User policy applied to the OU where your Citrix Servers located to 8hours or more.

Note: User Group Policy Refresh is not needed and can be turned off if you have Loopback turned on in the computer policy. This effectively applies User Policies during login.

Summary: The goal of this article is to save you the time and head aches troubleshooting a problem with applications that are sensitive to Group Policy refresh.


Written by Scott Chiara