Comment Virtualization is your Friend (Score 5, Interesting) 605
In modern times, I would give them no admin rights on the box itself, but you could provide virtual machines for them on which they can do whatever they want. The argument that they need to do things that "really, really"
I've done many audits and project plans on this topic in the past, and the issue is always that developers are split personalities: on the one hand they are standard corporate citizens that need email, calendar and word, which must be rock solid and therefore IT controlled, on the other hand they do their development work that requires freedom over their box. In the past the best solution was always to give them two PCs (or a thin client for the standard desktop work), but today I would solve this all through virtual machines.