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Event ID 1088 — Group Policy Preprocessing (General)

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

The Group Policy service, during the preprocessing phase, ensures that Group Policy is not configured beyond the scope of the service. An improper configuration could prevent Group Policy from applying to a computer or user.

Event Details

Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 1088
Source: Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy
Version: 6.0
Symbolic Name: gpEvent_TOO_MANY_GPOS
Message: The processing of Group Policy failed. Windows attempted to query the list of Group Policy objects and exceeded the maximum limit (999).

Resolve

Reduce excessive numbers of linked Group Policy objects

Group Policy objects can be linked throughout the Active Directory hierarchy. Windows traverse this hierarchy, searching for Group Policy objects that apply to the user or computer. Windows cannot apply more than 999 Group Policy objects to a single user or computer. 

To reduce excessive numbers of linked Group Policy objects (GPOs):

  1. Determine the total number of Group Policy objects (GPOs) within the scope of the user or computer. You can do this using the Group Policy Results reporting feature from the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). Expand the Group Policy Objects section in the report to view the list of applied and denied Group Policy objects.
  2. Determine the number of GPOs you must remove from the scope of the computer or user to fall under the limit of 999. This is the number of GPOs you must remove from the scope of the computer or user.
  3. Analyze each of the policy settings to determine if the computer or user is receiving any GPOs with duplicate settings. You can do this by using the reporting features in GPMC.
  4. Perform one or more of the following actions to remove the GPO from the scope of the user:
    • Unlink the GPO from the site, domain, or organizational unit. This removes the GPO from the scope of all users within the site, domain, or organizational unit, respectively.
    • Move the computer or user to a different organizational unit where fewer GPOs are linked. Or consider moving the computer or user to a higher location in the Active Directory hierarchy.
    • Use security filtering to prevent the GPO from being in scope with the computer or user.

Verify

Group Policy applies during computer startup and user logon. Afterward, Group Policy applies every 90 to 120 minutes. Events appearing in the event log may not reflect the most current state of Group Policy. Therefore, you should always refresh Group Policy to determine if Group Policy is working correctly.

To refresh Group Policy on a specific computer:

  1. Open the Start menu. Click All Programs and then click Accessories.
  2. Click Command Prompt.
  3. In the command prompt window, type gpupdate and then press ENTER.
  4. When the gpupdate command completes, open the Event Viewer.

Group Policy is working correctly if the last Group Policy event to appear in the System event log has one of the following event IDs:

  • 1500
  • 1501
  • 1502
  • 1503

Group Policy Preprocessing (General)

Group Policy Infrastructure