Deploy Windows XP through GPO

Daniel Petri

Jan 8, 2009

How do I use Group Policy to deploy Windows XP in a Windows 2000 network?
You can use Group Policy to make a Windows XP Professional upgrade available to the Windows 2000 Professional workstations in your network.

Create a folder to hold the Windows Installer package (Winnt32.msi) on a network server. Give the folder the appropriate permissions to allow the users and the computers to read and run the files, and then copy the I386 folder from the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM to this folder.
You can create a GPO for a domain, an organizational unit, or a site. It is recommended that you assign a GPO to an organizational unit that contains the users whose workstations you want to upgrade.
In that GPO, click to expand User Configuration, and then click to expand Software Settings.
Right-click Software installation, point to New, and then click Package.
In the Look in box, browse to the share where the I386 folder is located.
Make sure that the path that you enter is an accessible Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path and not a file system path.
Open the share that contains the Windows Installer package, click Winnt32.msi, and then click Open.
Click Publish, and then click OK.

Note: When you make changes to the GPO, these changes are not applied immediately to the target computers. Instead, they are applied according to the currently valid Group Policy refresh interval. In this scenario, when the program has been published to the users, it is available the next time the affected users log on.

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