SOLVED: GPO to Disable the RESTORE Button In Shadow Copies

If you want to disable the RESTORE button in PREVIOUS VERSIONS/SHADOW COPIES using a Group Policy Object (GPO), you are smart.  Humans make mistakes so IT Administrators need to set policies to protect people from themselves.

I argued with Microsoft about this fact when Shadow Copies came out and the response was that staff should be able to restore files and folders without limitation.  According to Microsoft your NT File Permissions should be locked down enough to ensure that staff do not have access to folders they should not have access to.  This completely missed the point.  The CFO may have access to nearly every departmental folder and should NOT be able to wipe out weeks worth of work by simply clicking the RESTORE button.

The policy to set is:

• USER CONFIGURATION >  POLICIES > ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES > WINDOWS COMPONENTS > FILE EXPLORER > PREVIOUS VERSIONS
• set Prevent Restoring Remote Previous Versions to ENABLED

Enjoy.