Installing programs through GPO over manually installed ones?

Question

Active Directory

For a long time, the organization installed software manually on new laptops (Acrobar Reader, 7-zip, browsers, etc.) Now there is a need to automate all this through policies.
The question is: what problems can arise if the same program is installed on top of manually installed programs, but through policies?

Answer 1

Long ago abandoned GPO in favor of PDQ Deploy.
An excellent tool, very flexible in settings, deployment, software library is updated, etc.
I recommend looking in the direction of PDQ Deploy.

Answer 2

Purely theoretically - none. But I would in the installation script, lay down the removal of old versions. That is to say, for insurance purposes.
Well, to test, I hope you are not going to run in production without tests? :)

Answer 3

What prevents you from running msi files on one computer, which you will deploy through GPO and see how the installation goes on top?
In general, if everything was correctly installed through the installers, there really should not be any problems.

Answer 4

what problems can arise

Same as without GPO. Because policy installation differs from local installation in that the installation package is located on the server and there is no user interaction. That is, you need to check each installer separately.