Q: How can I prevent my users from deleting their Internet Explorer (IE) browsing history?

A: If you don’t want your IE 7.0 users to delete their browsing histories, you can enable the group policy setting Turn off "Delete Browsing History" functionality. This setting is located in two Group Policy Object (GPO) containers,

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates
\Windows Components\Internet Explorer\Delete
Browsing History

and

User Configuration\Administrative Templates
\Windows Components\Internet Explorer\Delete
Browsing History GPO containers

Depending on the administrative template (*.adm files) version available on your machine, this setting may not be located in the "Delete Browsing History" GPO container but instead directly under the "Internet Explorer" container.

This GPO setting only works for IE 7.0 and later. A workaround for all IE versions is to disable the General page of IE's Internet Options, because the General page contains the pushbutton for deleting the browsing history. This page can be disabled using the Disable the General page GPO option, which is located in the containers

Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates
\Windows Components\Internet Explorer\Internet
Control Panel

and

User Configuration\Administrative Templates
\Windows Components\Internet Explorer\Internet
Control Panel GPO

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