Enforced Group Policy Object (GPO): A Group Policy Object (GPO) that is specifically associated with a scope of management (SOM) so that the associated GPO has a higher GPO precedence compared to non-enforced GPOs that are associated with the same SOM and compared to all GPOs that are associated with descendant SOMs. An enforced GPO cannot be blocked by a descendant SOM using the gpOptions attribute.
The “Enforced” within the GPMC controls how the Group Policy Object and the settings within the Group Policy Object are handled with regard to precedence of the settings. In short, when all GPOs apply from Active Directory, those GPOs that are linked to organizational units (OUs) have the highest precedence, then those linked to the domain, and finally those linked to Active Directory sites. Local GPOs on the target endpoint have the weakest precedence of all. What this means is that if there is a conflicting setting within two GPOs at different levels, the setting within the highest precedence GPO will “win” and be applied over the setting in the GPO that has lower precedence.
