Group Polices appear to be processed slower than in earlier versions of ZENworks

  • 3186764
  • 06-Jan-2007
  • 30-Apr-2012

Environment


Novell ZENworks for Desktops 4.0.1 - ZfD4.0.1 Desktop Management
Novell ZENworks 7 Desktop Management - ZDM7 Desktop Management
Novell ZENworks 6.5 Desktop Management - ZDM6.5 Desktop Management

Situation

Previous to ZENworks Desktop Management 6.5 the Group Polices are applied asynchronously by default. After merging all the required Group Policy files the ZENworks Group Policy helper (wmgrppol.dll) calls Windows to refresh the Group Policy. Windows returns immediately with a 'success' and continues to refresh the policy in the background. Upon receiving the'success' ZENworks proceeds with the login process.
If the Group Policy does not get processed early enough during the login operation then certain settings may not be applied, most noticeably are the policy settings that influence the Desktop.

In ZENworks Desktop Management 6.5 and 7 the policies are applied synchronously by default. Windows will not return 'success' until the Group Policy refresh has completed. As the login operation must wait for the Group Policy to finish processing, this is where the extra time is taken during the procedure.


Resolution

Synchronous processing of Group Policies is enabled at each Windows workstation. Create a new DWORD value named "Apply Policies Synchronously" with a value of 0 in the registry location "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Novell\Workstation Manager\Group Policies"