Group Policy

"John" wrote in message
news:0EEBA3FF-260D-4E43-AA31-A8DA6A4182F5@microsoft.com...
> I want to setup windows xp professional sp2 to prevent users from
> being able
> to install any applications other than windows updates. They still
> should be
> able to use their flash drives, but not install any programs on the
> computer.
> This includes programs that use windows installer and those that
> don't use
> windows installer.


Not using a Windows installer can include simply copying files. There
are lots of programs that run stand-alone, don't need to be registered
in the registry to specify paths to their DLLs or which methods to
call from them for a particular function, and are simply installed by
unzipping or copying files. SysInternals has lots of those. Nirsoft,
too. There are lots of programs, especially utilities, that don't
require a setup or install of them, just to copy them. So how are you
going to prevent users from copying files? If so, you've ruined their
ability to use their host since they won't be able to create any files
there.

If you want to regulate what users install on the company's hosts,
establish software policies and usage policies along with using some
big brother monitoring software to check that everything they have
installed on the company's host match up to an authorized list (or
simply logs what they have installed to then have the ability to audit
their configuration).