After spending the last 6 months working with InfoPath 2007, "InfoPath Forms Services" and "Content Types" you start to understand lot of the different possibilities that are avaliable and I think it's pretty amazing on how versatile InfoPath 2007 forms are when used as Content Types in conjunction with InfoPath Forms Services.  In the old days which really aren't that old you only had one true way to publish an InfoPath form for viewing from SharePoint but know that has all changed with 2007 version.  Now you have 3 different ways of doing it if using SharePoint Enterprise and InfoPath designer.  You can still publish an InfoPath form directly to Form Library but now you can also publish a form as "Site Content Type" or "Administrator-approved form template" for uploading into "InfoPath Forms Services".  The third option is only available when the "Enable this form to be filled out by using a browser" is checked.  See image below for the actual details for each option.

The "InfoPath Forms Services" approach has pretty much become my favorite way because the SharePoint Administrator has control of which SharePoint Site Collection the form is activated in and the form is also gets installed as "Site Content Type" (Site Collection Feature).  By using this approach with the "Collaboration Portal" template it appears automatically in the central "Form Library" that is automatically created.  This gives everyone one central spot to access all the forms for that site. Clients that I've worked with think this is a dream come true because all forms can be stored and organized in one central location.

Now anybody that uses InfoPath all knows that most forms will need a place to reside once the form has been filled out and submitted for viewing the promoted form data or just viewing the submitted forms.  The above approach doesn't give this capability but just a way to launch the form.  When creating a new "Form Library" for an InfoPath form it can be done from InfoPath designer or specifying the form as a "Content Type" for a newly created library.  The first approach requires additional work from InfoPath and not to ideal from a support aspect because you would need to keep up with 2 instances of the form and this leaves a lot of room for potential problems.  If the form is added to the "Form Library" as a "Content Type" then there is no additional work besides selecting the form from the "Content Types" section on the form library settings page.

If the "Content Types" section doesn't appear then most likely the "Allow management of content types" is not set to yes.  This property can be found on the "Advanced settings" page and this link is available from the form library settings page.

You might be thinking how or when was the form published as a "Content Type" because you didn't specify it to be done because you only uploaded and activated it from "InfoPath Forms Services" in Central Administration.

When the form is activated with "InfoPath Forms Services" to the specified site collection it is automatically added as a "Content Type" (Site Collection Feature).  Now there are no worries about keeping the form in "InfoPath Forms Services" and form library in sync because it uses the same form.  While the form is specified in two different areas it will give the user the capability to launch it from either.

This approach might not be 100% ideal for all instances but it brings great flexibility that was missing.  For a future post I'll try to put together a series of screen shots on how to publish a InfoPath form to be uploaded into "InfoPath Forms Services" and also add it as a "Content Type" to a form library if there is a interest

Cheers