Restiction policies for installing and uninstalling software in windows xp

There are several ways to go about this...group policy is the best way, but since most users are not savvy enough, you can manually set individual machine policies (though some may be bypassed if group policy is being pushed). start/run gpedit.msc, user configuration, administrative templates.

Set what you want in there, then set the users local machine accounts to user.

There are also some software solutions for this that you can purchase, but why?