Hidden Schedule tasks in Windows 8

Hello again :)

 I was looking for those hidden group policy schedule tasks that are created in Windows 8/2012 recently.  These tasks are the ones created to perform the routine Group Policy refresh updates and the administrator driven updates too (such as invoke-GPUpdate in powershell).

So just so as I can remember (plus you may find them useful too)

They are located here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Schedule\TaskCache\Tree\Microsoft\Windows\GroupPolicy\

The default tasks are sub keys called:

{3E0A038B-D834-4930-9981-E89C9BFF83AA}

{A7719E0F-10DB-4640-AD8C-490CC6AD5202}

These are for the user and computer default refresh.

Any manual updates will be stored in separate folders underneath called the GroupPolicy Key, these will be called:

GPUpdate

GPUpdate (<user>@<domain>)

Of course, the GPUpdate key will have the computer refresh value and the GPUpdate (<user>@<domain>) will be the user refresh :)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2014
    Thanks!

    Because of this a Windows-Explorer window will close every 60 to 90 minutes, if you have a GPP to connect with a drive letter in mode "replace". If you put the GPP in mode "refresh", this will not happen.