If I am not mistaken the CE edition does not allow Config Backup to restore since it is a free edition.  I believe you need STD+ for that.

Are your configuration backups on a network share? And do you have administrative access to this, too?

I have just checked with my test server with community license and the configuration restore works.

So, it has to be a permission problem with the location your configuration backups reside on.

Thanks for confirming that as my assumption was wrong.  I figured you could restore with CE version. 

You say the process breaks before you see the dialog window to select the Restore Mode and the backup file?

The config restore needs admin rights and there is the Windows UAC dialog shown before the restore dialog is opened….

So, it should not be a access permission problem with the location the backups reside on, but a “problem” with the admin permissions of your user….

The configuration backups are contained on one of the local drives (a different drive than the OS and Program Files).  Admins have full rights to the drive and all files/folders on it.

I do get the UAC dialog and, after going through it, I get the “Access Denied” message about 2 seconds later.  We even tried temporarily disabling UAC and it still failed.  Not surprisingly, I get the same behavior if I try to run it from “C:\Program Files\Veeam\Backup and Replication\Backup\Veeam.Backup.Configuration.Restore.exe” or if I go to the .bco files and double-click on them.

Could this have anything to do with permissions on Veeam’s SQL database?  Anything to do with the “Enable backup file encyption” option being checked?  I did open a call with Veeam but, given this is a free product, there is no SLA and it is simply email support if/when they have time to address it.  

I appreciate the suggestions and feedback so far.  Now knowing that the CE is capable of the configuration restore really makes me want to figure this out.  Thanks again!

Yes, it could be SQL DB permissions as well causing the issue and something to check in to.  Also, the Admins that are logging in are they in the server Local Admin group?  That is a requirement as well and might be the cause for the issue.

Haven't seen this behaviour up to now.

Do you know with which user you have installed VBR on this server? If yds, give it a try with this user. More rights on the db as this user are not possible...

I confirmed that my user was explicitly added to the “Local Admin” group but it didn’t seem to make a difference.

I guess I’ll put SQL Management Studio on it and poke around.

It looks like I posted my last comment just as you were posting, JMeixner.  

Yes, we’ve tried it with the user that installed the program but it doesn’t help.  I’ve also tried it with a different domain admin account and the original local admin that installed the OS.

If you don’t have anything set up for backups maybe a clean uninstall/reinstall might help?  Just something to try if you can.

Please also make sure, that all veeam services are running as „LOCAL SYSTEM“.

We had similar cases where running veeam services under a user lead to unexpected behaviors like this access denied notifications.

Confirmed all Veeam services are running as “Local System”.

This is actually a fresh install of Windows 10 LTSC.  The same box was previously running Windows 10 Pro.  So, we wiped the computer, installed VB&R and then ran into this problem.  

We do have another box with the community edition running on it and we’ve confirmed the same behavior with that one... Access Denied when trying to simply start the Config Restore process.  It has to be something specific to our environment but I’m at a loss at this point.

We also contacted our Veeam Rep and turned our the new install of Community Edition into a 30-day trial version of Standard and it made no difference.

Any other applications on the machine such as AV, EDR, etc?  Wondering if it’s not windows but maybe someone else is blocking Veeam from being able to browse to the backup file to be restored after it passes through UAC?  Seems to me like it’s less likely to be Windows given what you’ve tried so far, though I could certainly could be wrong.

What do your Veeam logs say? And can you upload a screenshot of the error so we can see what is saying access denied?

Also as a separate FYI, using Windows Desktop OS’ as a server is against their EULA

I wanted to thank everyone for their comments.  We just figured it out.

We have a GPO that disables “Debug Programs”, even for Admins, under User Rights Assignments.  We temporarily grant the permission to a specific user when we need them.  I’d forgotten that one of the times we have to do this is during our Veeam upgrades so I really should have recognized the problem earlier.  Generally, the permission is only for a specific task, like upgrading Veeam, and once the task is complete the role is no longer necessary.  

In this case, the Veeam (SQL) requires the logged in user to have the Debug Programs permission before the Configuration restore dialog will begin. 

Thanks again!

Wow...that’s an odd one, but thanks for reporting back to us on it so that we’re aware what the root cause was!