1.3.3 Policy Application
The client’s interaction with the Group Policy server in policy application follows a pull model in which the client polls a Group Policy server to check for new behavioral specifications from administrators. The settings that are retrieved through policy application are intended to affect either the client computer itself or a domain user that is interactively logged on to the client. Because of this, policy application operates in two modes: a computer policy mode that retrieves computer policy settings that are based on the client computer's account, and a user policy mode that retrieves user policy settings that are based on the account of a domain user who is interactively logged on to the computer. The account for which the settings are being retrieved is called the policy target. For computer policy mode, the policy target is always the client computer's domain account; for user policy mode, the policy target is the account of a domain user who is interactively logged on to the client.