I wonder if the following is possible to do using Group Policies or other setup, or by 3rd party apps. We've been trying to automate a lot of software, but there is always some software that are updated too often, or the users would like control over themselves. However, the IT department would like to have control over which software the user may install manually. I would like to make this real simple. Just set a specific file-share that the user may install software from. And only this fileshare is allowed (add UNC path somewhere through group policy or similar). Is this possible? Then I could make that file-share read-only so only users with write-access are allowed to install software from this path. I know some software caches files locally before starting setup, so these must be fixed (converted to MSI or just extracted). Is this possible using some kind of MSI install rule or similar?

If user has local admin permission, you canno stop them from installing software. If they do not have local admin permission, software should not able to be installed (unless some software which can be directly run), and you can assign/publish software to users so that they will only get the software you would like to provide. For unwanted software, you may create a restriction to block them. 2 related articles: Assigning and Publishing Software http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc783635(WS.10).aspx Using Software Restriction Policies to Protect Against Unauthorized Software http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457006.aspxShaon Shan| TechNet Subscriber Support in forum| If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com

too bad that such an easy solution is not possible