Publishing application through group policy?

qsub

Can someone explain to me this question.

Place suptools.msi and support.cab in a folder labeled application. (done)
Publish this folder through group policy to active directory to all users but XXXX user. (wtf?)

My book actually doesn't have much in regards to this. But this is a lab question I had come up. At this point, I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to achieve. Can someone help me out on this?

keatron

Load the Active Directory Users and Computers MMC. Right click the perspective domain or OU you're working with. Select properties then select the group policy tab. If you haven't created a group policy yet, do so now by clicking the "new" button. After giving it a name, click the "edit" button. Here's where you select either the software settings folder for either computers, or users (depends on how you're trying to roll out the software; by user groups, or computers). After selecting the software settings folder, you'll get a drill down of a "software installation" icon. Right click this, then select new>package. You will get the standard open file dialog box, which is where you would browse to the msi package you created or downloaded.

You should have already decided which group of users, or computers this policy is going to apply to by this time. Next step is to verify that user group, or computer group has the read and the apply group policy permissions on this particular group policy. To verify this, click the properties button then select the security tab. If you don't see the group you're aiming to apply the policy to, add them, then grant read, and apply group policy permissions only. From my experience, not giving the target user groups or computer groups proper permissions is the number one reason for group policy failure, so always check this. Log on with any user in that group or any computer in the group, and the software will be installed on each station. This is just basic, I could write many pages about this because it was my favorite new feature in Windows 2000 server. There are other options you'll need to consider such as whether to publish or assign the packages. Basically, publish allows you to publish applications that users may find useful, allowing users to decide whether to install the application. You can only publish to users, not computers. Assign allows you to assign applications that users require to perform their jobs. Assigned applications are available on users’ desktops automatically. To really get a clear understanding of the differences and limitations of these two options, look at this chart on MS website.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/planning/management/swinstall.asp

If you've never used group policy before, be ready to be amazed at home many things you can centrally control via group policy.

qsub

Thanks for the reply, but by reading that question. Is that really what it's asking me to do?

I had a feeling it was terminal services but I found the question a bit vague.