How to programatically update group policy? i.e. gpupdate /force

Question

I have several local accounts which are created at install time with C#. There is a group policy that in turn grants certain permissions to these new accounts.

The problem I am trying to solve is how do I go about getting the group policy pushed to the new accounts. Without the group policy applied the application will not function.

Opening a cmd prompt and running gpupdate /force fixes it, but I need a more seamless transition between install time and run time.

Answer 1

That should do the trick:

    private void UpdateGroupPolicy()
    {
        FileInfo execFile = new FileInfo("gpupdate.exe");
        Process proc = new Process();
        proc.StartInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
        proc.StartInfo.FileName = execFile.Name;
        proc.StartInfo.Arguments = "/force";
        proc.Start();
        //Wait for GPUpdate to finish
        while (!proc.HasExited)
        {
            Application.DoEvents();
            Thread.Sleep(100);
        }
        MessageBox.Show("Update procedure has finished");
    }