I've recently tried to push out software (and updates) through windows server 2008 gpo. I did not work for quite some time and I wasn't getting any indication that it was even trying to install the software in the logs. It turns out that it had to do with our switch having spanning tree portfast setting disabled. Once I turned this on in the port our test computer was using, it worked fine.
The problem is I don't fully understand this setting and most of our computers are hooked up to voip phones with their own switch built in. Basically, I don't understand what it's doing and therefore the potential consequences of doing this.
I've found a couple of gpo solutions that other people have had success with but I am not having any. One setting, "Startup policy processing wait time" doesn't appear to be working and I'm not quite sure how to check that it is. I've tried running gpresult /r but it shows the gpo is empty. I turned the delay up to 240 seconds and I didn't notice startup taking any longer than normal.
The other solution I tried was "Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon." Again, this does nothing. I've turned on net logon debug and looked at the logs and it seems like the main error is 05/30 12:47:34 [CRITICAL] MYDOMAIN: NlDiscoverDc: Cannot find DC.
So, am I on the right track? Is there a way to verify that these gpo's are actually be applied at start up. Any help would be appreciated.