Windows Server 2019 group policy objects must be reprocessed even if they have not changed.

Severity	Group ID	Group Title	Version	Rule ID	Date	STIG Version
medium	V-205866	SRG-OS-000480-GPOS-00227	WN19-CC-000140	SV-205866r991589_rule	2025-02-25	3

Description
Registry entries for group policy settings can potentially be changed from the required configuration. This could occur as part of troubleshooting or by a malicious process on a compromised system. Enabling this setting and then selecting the "Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed" option ensures the policies will be reprocessed even if none have been changed. This way, any unauthorized changes are forced to match the domain-based group policy settings again.

Description

Registry entries for group policy settings can potentially be changed from the required configuration. This could occur as part of troubleshooting or by a malicious process on a compromised system. Enabling this setting and then selecting the "Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed" option ensures the policies will be reprocessed even if none have been changed. This way, any unauthorized changes are forced to match the domain-based group policy settings again.

ℹ️ Check
If the following registry value does not exist or is not configured as specified, this is a finding: Registry Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Registry Path: \SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Group Policy\{35378EAC-683F-11D2-A89A-00C04FBBCFA2}\ Value Name: NoGPOListChanges Type: REG_DWORD Value: 0x00000000 (0)

✔️ Fix
Configure the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> System >> Group Policy >> "Configure registry policy processing" to "Enabled" with the option "Process even if the Group Policy objects have not changed" selected.