Enable Delete history and Delete all buttons in IE

[MerseyBeat]

Hey all,

My company computer was recently reimaged (it was running XP SP2). I am
part of the Administrator group. It is now running XP SP3 with IE7.

In IE, Tools --> the Delete history and Delete all buttons are grayed out.
In the Group Policy Editor, I navigate to User Configuration -->
Administrative Templates --> Windows Components --> Internet Explorer and
there is no Delete Browsing History key. An internet (Google) search did
not provide a solution. Similar questions have been asked going back years
but all solutions refer to the group policy edit above.

How can I enable these buttons or manually delete the browsing history ?

Thank you for your time.

Cheers,
MB

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Hey all,

My company computer was recently reimaged (it was running XP SP2).
I am part of the Administrator group. It is now running XP SP3 with
IE7.

In IE, Tools --> the Delete history and Delete all buttons are
grayed out. In the Group Policy Editor, I navigate to User
Configuration --> Administrative Templates --> Windows
Components --> Internet Explorer and there is no Delete Browsing
History key. An internet (Google) search did not provide a
solution. Similar questions have been asked going back years but
all solutions refer to the group policy edit above.

How can I enable these buttons or manually delete the browsing
history ?

Sounds like your company decided to implement a group policy on their
company computer to prevent deleting the IE history (likely a Domain
policy, if using Windows Domains or Active Directory since that would
take precedence over local policies). Could be that someone was using
the company computer to do things they shouldn't have been doing on
company time...

 

[Rob]

Sounds like your company decided to implement a group policy on their
company computer to prevent deleting the IE history (likely a Domain
policy, if using Windows Domains or Active Directory since that would
take precedence over local policies). Could be that someone was using
the company computer to do things they shouldn't have been doing on
company time...

My thoughts exactly - a domain policy which will override any local
settings, even those of the local machine administrator.
I would expect a policy like that to also have other restrictions,
otherwise users could easily just use a portable browser.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

My thoughts exactly - a domain policy which will override any local
settings, even those of the local machine administrator.
I would expect a policy like that to also have other restrictions,
otherwise users could easily just use a portable browser.

Indeed. Will be interesting to see if the OP responds with anything
else... Another thought I had is that many/most group policies can be
set directly via the registry and don't show in the group policy
editor when implemented that way. Allows for scripting of an OS image
creation process, but the side effect of not showing in the group
policy editor can be annoying and requires a different approach to
verifying the OS image is correctly configured.

--
Zaphod

Arthur: All my life I've had this strange feeling that there's
something big and sinister going on in the world.
Slartibartfast: No, that's perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the
universe gets that.

 

[MerseyBeat]

Zaphod and Rob,

Thank you for replying. I didn't think about domain policy. I posted
because I found it odd when the policy was in effect even when the tablet
was removed from the network. Obviously, removed from the network and
removed from the domain are not the same.

There are a few hundred users on the domain so it would be safe to assume
that someone would visit questionable websites.

Honestly, my "problem" is trivial at best. Nonetheless, I appreciate you
forcing my recall of domain policy vs. local policy.

Cheers,
MB