Force a Restart to Ensure Removable Storage Access Policy is Enforced

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Applies To: Windows Server 2008

You can use this procedure to force a restart if the removable storage access policy settings you configured can be enforced immediately due to a device being in use.

Windows can only apply Removable Storage Access Group Policy on devices that are not currently in use. If you do not want to wait until the user restarts the computer, you can force a restart by changing this policy setting.

Membership in the local Administrators group, or equivalent, is the minimum required to complete this procedure.

To force a restart to ensure that removable storage access policy is enforced

  1. Open the Group Policy Management Editor. To do so, click Start, and then in the Start Search box, type mmc gpedit.msc.

  2. In the navigation pane, open the following folders: Local Computer Policy, Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, and Removable Storage Access.

  3. In the details pane, double-click Time (in seconds) to force reboot.

  4. Click Enabled, and then enter the number of seconds you want to wait before forcing the reboot. The maximum number of seconds is 9999, and the default value is 1800 (30 minutes).

  5. Click OK to save your changes.

Additional considerations

  • If you edit policy settings locally on a computer, you will affect the settings on only that one computer. If you configure the settings in a Group Policy object (GPO) hosted in an Active Directory domain, then the settings apply to all computers that are subject to that GPO. For more information about Group Policy in an Active Directory domain, see Group Policy (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=55625).

  • The restart is only forced if all of the currently applied Removable Storage Access policy settings cannot be immediately enforced.