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I am not sure about group policy. &nbsp;However I know that if you don't log in with Administrator rights you will not be able to install software. &nbsp;So as long as people aren't &nbsp;logging on to your server directly with Administrator rights then they should have the ability to install software.
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I am not sure about group policy.  However I know that if you don't log in with Administrator rights you will not be able to install software.  So as long as people aren't  logging on to your server directly with Administrator rights then they should have the ability to install software.

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I am running a Windows 2000 AD in native mode with a mixture of Windows 2000 Pro and XP clients running SP4, SP1, and SP2 respectively. What I have at remote sites is 2000 file servers that are used for storage and backup, and in some cases used for mail and apps for production if the site has limited # of machines. What I would like to do at this point is restrict those 2000 file servers from having software installed on them through a gp, what's the best practices to go about doing this? I know of 3rd party apps, but we're looking to do this with what we currently have in place. 
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I am running a Windows 2000 AD in native mode with a mixture of Windows 2000 Pro and XP clients running SP4, SP1, and SP2 respectively. What I have at remote sites is 2000 file servers that are used for storage and backup, and in some cases used for mail and apps for production if the site has limited # of machines. What I would like to do at this point is restrict those 2000 file servers from having software installed on them through a gp, what's the best practices to go about doing this? I know of 3rd party apps, but we're looking to do this with what we currently have in place. 

Windows 2000 AD GP to restrict software installs

Windows 2000 is an operating system for use on both client and server computers. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the last version of Microsoft Windows to display the "Windows NT" designation. Four editions of Windows 2000 were released (Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter Server) that shared a core set of features, including many system utilities such as the Microsoft Management Console. All versions of the operating system support NTFS 3.0, Encrypting File System, as well as basic and dynamic disk storage. The Windows 2000 Server family includes support for Active Directory services, Distributed File System and fault-redundant storage volumes.