Group Policy installation failed error 1274

Solution 1:

You're seeing the dreaded scourge of asynchronous policy processing. It's not a "feature" (and was default-off in Windows 2000 but default-on in Windows XP and above) and causes exactly what you're seeing-- non-deterministic behaviour with processing some types of GPO settings.

In a GPO that applies to that computer, add the following setting:

• Computer Settings
  • Administrative Templates
    • System
      • Logon
        • Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon - Enabled

After you set that (and allow the GPO to replicate if you're in a multi-DC environment), do a "gpupdate /force /boot" on the subject PC. It will reboot and you should see the software installation occur.

The "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon" slightly slows down the startup and logon because all GPO extensions are allowed to process, but the upside is that all GPO extensions are allowed to process.

Solution 2:

I tried the Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon - Enabled setting from the answer by @Evan Anderson, but it wasn't until I added this setting below as well that allowed the software to install. Not sure if it was a combination of both settings or not. It's working now, so I'm leaving both settings.

In a Group Policy applied to these workstations, navigate to:

Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Group Policy

Enable the Specify startup policy processing wait time. Set Amount of time to wait (in seconds): = 120

120 might be overkill, but that worked for me. Other forums suggested setting that to 30 seconds. Even though 30 seconds default (when policy is not set), forcing it to 30 seconds worked for them.

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Solution 3:

This can happen if the application is already installed but msiexec is unable to uninstall it. Most common scenario is a previous manual install with "Only for me" selected instead of "Everyone who logs on to this computer".

You can use the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301) to trick the PC into thinking that the app is no longer present, and then it should come good.

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Solution 4:

And I just found another different cause of this error. If you have "Spanning Tree" configured on the ethernet switch connected to the problem workstation, it will delay activation of the switch port when the PC boots up. Disabling Spanning Tree for the switch port or enabling "Spanning Tree Portfast" for the switchport solved this problem on a few of my workstations.

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Solution 5:

I had the same problem but none of the fixes above worked. I finally figured out that there was another GPO trying to install software before mine, and it was failing with the %%1274 error because the GPO itself had the wrong permissions. For some reason that failure was then preventing my GPO from installing, even through mine had the correct permissions. Once I disabled the other problem GPO, my GPO installed correctly.