Install windows components on a locked-down machine

More and more companies set their users as non admin, even with XP. The so-called locking down tries to protect the user and the network against anything only an administrator should do.

But there's also group policy that directs what gets shown in windows, which software gets activated, etc. In my case, the policy doesn't let you access the Add/Remove Windows Components section.

Being an administrator on the machine, I could go and change the registry to deny read permission to whichever account is being used for policies. That's a bit drastic and I wouldn't recommend it.

But thanks to the complexity and myriad of options available to group policy, sometimes you can get away with easier things.

To add or remove windows components, open PowerShell and type the following.

PS C:\WINDOWS> sysocmgr /i:$env:windir\inf\sysoc.inf

Or for people still using cmd

C:\WINDOWS> sysocmgr /i:%WINDIR%\inf\sysoc.inf

I'd rather we didn't have to play catch and seek with network administrators, but you have to do what you have to do to get the job done sometimes.