Certain files from Microsoft (in particular, things such as PowerPoint Viewer and the Office 2007 Compat. Pack) are provided as .exe files. If you’re looking for something a little easier to roll out via Group Policy, you can extract the archive files to a folder of your choice by adding the /extract or /c command line switches. Which switch to use depends on the package, but you can usually do /? to get an explanation of all the options. The files Microsoft provides usually contain some MSI files you can then add to a Software Policy.