Error: "Windows could not connect to the Group Policy Client service"

Hi,

Have you tried the steps outlined by Diana D?

Method 1:

a)      Log on to the machine as administrator

b)      Click start and into the search box type “Event Viewer” and press enter

c)       Look in the Windows Logs under System for any Warnings or Errors. The error message will be something like Windows cannot process Group Policy Client Side Extension

d)      On the details tab, take a note of the GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) for the faulty client side extension

e)      Click start and into the search box type “regedit” and press enter

f)       Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\GPExtensions and then click on the string that represents your faulty GP Extension.

g)      Click on the file menu and choose export and save a backup of the file.

h)      Once the registry is backed up you can delete the folder that corresponds to the GUID

i)        Do a restart and log on as a normal user.

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base
How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

Method 2:  Follow the steps mentioned in the article below to restore security settings and then check if that makes any difference

How do I restore security settings to a known working state?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313222