I believe the best way to keep only "hosting allowed" Windows systems is to start using the newer and current Windows objects like these below:
Windows Installer 3.0 http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/msi/setup/windows_installer_start_page.asp
<quote>
Supported Operating Systems: Windows 2000 Service Pack 3, Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows XP Service Pack 1
Windows XP Service Pack 2 contains Windows Installer 3.0
</quote>
Windows Installer 3.0 Redistributable http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5fbc5470-b259-4733-a914-a956122e08e8&displaylang=en
And maybe it's time to look into learning Windows Installer 3.0 patch files too!
<quote>
It can apply patches in a constant order regardless of the order that the patches are provided to the system. Patches installed with Windows Installer version 3.0 can be uninstalled in any order to leave the state of the product the same as if the patch was never installed. Patching using Windows Installer version 3.0 only updates files affected by the patch and can be significantly faster than earlier installer versions.
</quote>
Maybe even using Windows Scripting, another current Windows object, that is also installed on these newer hosting systems, could be used for all these install, changes, (and etc.) type ways!
Windows Installer Scripting Examples http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/msi/setup/windows_installer_scripting_examples.asp
And two free ways to learn Windows Installer usage are:
An old but great VB Installer book that can easily be changed into Windows Scripting VBScript usage.
Learn two current Windows objects at once - Windows Scripting and Windows Installer actions!
Free Windows Installer Book http://www.larkware.com/InstallerBook.zip
And
WiX is a toolset for building Windows installation packages from XML source code.
Also great to use with Windows Scripting actions!
WiX http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/
So start using the newer current Windows objects and the current mod_aspdotnet users will also start to learn Windows Scripting
And maybe even get ready to use MSH scripting. When all the .NET Framework classes will be available for scripting!
MSH Microsoft's next-generation shell.
<quote>
My first reaction? MSH rocks.
System administration on Windows, and ultimately everywhere, will be forever changed for the better.
At its core, MSH is an object pipeline. Unix, of course, invented the pipelining concept. But in Unix-like systems - including Linux and OS X - the data that's passed from one command to the next is weakly structured ASCII text.
When you've got smart, self-describing objects flowing through that pipeline, it's a whole new ball game.
</quote>
Introduction to MSH http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2004/11/02.html#a1106
and Windows Installer 3.0 patch files. Plus using these newer current Windows objects, Windows itself, blocks out the other Windows systems, not mod_aspdotnet!
Jeff
