IT Managers are tasked with making the desktop environment more secure and locked down to a uniform corporate standard, yet flexible enough to handle the myriad of exceptions that arise across the enterprise. Centralized Configuration Management (CCM) tools are great, especially in environments with branch offices, but CCM tools can’t do the big job of making your environment inherently more secure or more flexible. This paper focuses on how IT Managers can leverage CCM tools along with other techniques and tools to have it all: security, a uniform standard, and flexibility when needed.