What is secedit?

[NBee]

Hi.

Everytime my PC starts up, a little command box briefly appears at the bottom, then disappears again. I managed to read the command that is being executed...

secedit.exe

Does anyone know what this is, and what it's doing? I also get prompted to connect to the internet - that message that says "A program is requesting information...." - not sure if it's related or not.

I have XP.

Thanks for any clues.

[EzyStvy]

Using SECEDIT to Force a Group Policy Refresh Immediately
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q227302

[NBee]

Wow, now I'm even more confused!

So, does that mean something is wrong or not? Why has it suddenly started appearing, and should I do something?

Thanks EzyStvy.

[edge345]

Go to start on the toobar, then choose RUN then type in SECEDIT and a box will show up....

Automating security configuration tasksBy calling the Secedit.exe command-line tool from a batch file or automatic task scheduler, you can use it to automatically create and apply templates, and analyze system security. You can also run it dynamically from the command line.

Secedit.exe is useful when you have multiple computers on which security must be analyzed or configured, and you need to perform these tasks during off-hours.

For procedural information about using the Secedit.exe command-line tool to perform security tasks, see Secedit commands.
For information about defining Security Templates, see Security Templates.
For more information about security configuration and analysis, see Security Configuration and Analysis.
Note

The secedit /refreshpolicy command has been replaced with the gpupdate command. For information about how to refresh security settings, see Gpupdate.