Software deployment to 2000 computers without using a Star..

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.group_policy (More info?)

Greetings all,

We have a large number of in-house-created software tools that we have to
occasionally upgrade. We want to deploy these updates via GP. The
deployments must be assigned to users (not assigned to computers, and not
published) because different groups of users receive different sets of tools,
and our users occasionally migrate to different computers.

Our tools are started by an in-house program called Tool Launcher, which
allows the users to choose which tools are automatically launched at
start-up. This also means that the individual tools do not have Start Menu
links, and the Launcher calls the executable files directly.

The trouble is, on Windows 2000 computers, from what I've read at logon GP
ties an installer trigger to a Start Menu link, so that when a user clicks
the link it completes the installation. But since our tools do not include
Start Menu links and are started using our Tool Launcher, our 2000 users
never receive the updates. Of course, the XP users get them fine.

Is there any way to force 2000 computers to complete the installation during
the logon process, like XP computers do?