Performance problem when domain security policies are applied

[leelieu]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone have noticed a problem with the way windows 2000 applies the security policies when updating group policy objects on machines in a domain. What I have noticed is that every time this occurs (every 16 hours by default) the machine uses 100% CPU time for about 5 to 10 seconds (maybe even longer if machine specs are low) and the machine appears to slow down - I presume this is because the security updates are being applied.

This problem can also be observed when you force a security update by typing in the command line:
secedit /refreshpolicy {machine_policy | user_policy} /enforce

The effect of this is that one of our processes suffers a performance hit because it has been denied CPU process time during the period of this security update.

So, what I would like to know is if this update characteristic is normal on domain machines and if so, is there a way to customise and minimise what security policies are being updated so to reduce this performance problem.

Thanks in advance,

Lee