[Windows Tip] Remove “Restore Previous Versions” Option from Context Menu

Recently an AskVG reader “Arun” asked us how to remove “Restore Previous Versions” option from the context menu (right-click menu)? In Windows, when you right-click on a file, folder or drive, you get “Restore Previous Versions” option in the context menu as shown in following screenshot:

If you select this option, it opens that item’s properties box where “Previous Versions” tab is selected:

This feature is a part of “File History” service present in Windows which helps users in recovering accidentally lost files by copying them to/from a selected backup location.

If you don’t want this feature, you can turn it off by disabling “File History Service” in Services Manager (services.msc). But even after disabling the service, the context menu option “Restore Previous Versions” remains enabled. Also the tab “Previous Versions” remains available in the properties window.

Today in this tutorial, we’ll tell you how to remove the “Restore Previous Versions” option from context menu and “Previous Versions” tab from properties window.

If you also want to get rid of this option and tab, following steps will help you:

1. Press “WIN+R” key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following keys one by one:

3. For all above mentioned keys, under shellex key, you’ll find following 2 sub-keys:

The ContextMenuHandlers key contains entries of options which are shown in the right-click context menu. The PropertySheetHandlers key contains entries of tabs which are shown in properties window.

4. The key which is responsible for showing “Previous Versions” option in context menu and properties window is {596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153}.

So if you want to remove the “Restore Previous Versions” option from context menu, delete the {596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153} key present under ContextMenuHandlers key for all keys mentioned in Step 2.

And if you want to remove the “Previous Versions” tab from properties window, delete the {596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153} key present under PropertySheetHandlers key for all keys mentioned in Step 2.

That’s it. Once you delete the {596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153} key from registry, it’ll immediately remove the “Restore Previous Versions” option from context menu and “Previous Versions” tab from properties window.

PS: If you decide to restore the context menu option or properties window tab in future, simply create the {596AB062-B4D2-4215-9F74-E9109B0A8153} key again under ContextMenuHandlers and PropertySheetHandlers keys.

NOTE: If you are not familiar with Registry editing and want a ready-made Registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it:

The ZIP file also contains a restore registry script to restore the context menu option and properties window tab.

Also Check:

[Windows Tip] Remove “Share With” Option from Context Menu

[Windows Tip] Remove “Customize This Folder” Option from Context Menu

[Windows Tip] Remove “Sharing”, “Security”, “Customize” and “Previous Versions” Tabs from Properties