Group Policy to prevent users installing software

[maximusimo]

Hi,

we are running Windows 2000 SBS. I am looking to create a Group Policy to prevent users in an OU from being able to install software, any ideas how I should do this? Thanks in advance

 

[mwiner]

This has been a very much talked about topic. Really the only thing that I have found that can be done is to disable MSI files.

Via group policies you can easily disable the running of MSI (Microsoft Install files). This obviously only covers a few installs. I would say you can restrict users from running anything that is install.* setup.* etc. But if a user renames the files then it can easily be run. Of which there isn't much way around it.

Hopefully somebody has come up with a way to solve this since the last time I looked.

Good luck.

-Matt