Software Installation helps you specify how applications are installed and maintained within your organization.
You manage an application within a Group Policy object, which is in turn associated with a particular Active Directory container--either a site, domain, or organizational unit. Applications can be managed in one of two modes: assigned or published.
You assign an application when you want everyone to have the application on his or her computer. For example, suppose you want all users in a marketing department to have Microsoft Excel on their computers. A Group Policy object manages every user in marketing. When you assign Microsoft Excel within the marketing Group Policy object, Microsoft Excel is advertised on every marketing user's computer. When an assigned application is advertised, it is not actually installed on the computer. In this case, the application advertisement installs only enough information about Microsoft Excel to make the Microsoft Excel shortcuts appear on the Start menu and the necessary file associations (.xls) appear in the registry
When these users log on to their computers, Microsoft Excel appears on their Start menu. When they select Microsoft Excel from the Start menu for the first time, Microsoft Excel is installed. A user can also install an advertised application by opening a document associated with the application (either by file name extension or by COM-based activation). If a user who has not yet activated Microsoft Excel from the Start menu clicks a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to open it, then Microsoft Excel is installed and the spreadsheet opens.
A user can delete an assigned application, but the assigned application is advertised again the next time the user logs on. It will be installed the next time a user selects it from the Start menu.
You publish an application when you want the application to be available to people managed by the Group Policy object, should a user want the application. With published applications, it is up to each person to decide whether or not to install the published application.
For example, if you publish Microsoft Image Composer to users managed by the marketing Group Policy object and a marketing user wants to install Image Composer, the user can use Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, click Image Composer from the list of published applications, and then install it. If users do not install Image Composer using Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel, and if the .jpg file name extension for the image document is associated with Image Composer, then Image Composer can be installed for users when they first open any .jpg document.
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