Cannot browse for Files in SSMS 2008 R2–Cannot access the specified path or file on the server

Recently, while dealing with a client, I can across an issue where I couldn’t restore a database.

Whenever I pressed the “Add” button, I was shown a warning box, similair to;

After which, pressing Ok, would leave me with an empty Browse Dialog.

It seems as though, if your user does not have the "sysadmin" role, then they will not have sufficient access to the filesystem on the machine in order to open the file browser.

Setting aside the security concerns for one moment....

In order to grant this role;

1. Log in to SSMS using Windows Authentication
2. Navigate to Security->Logins
3. Either double Click, or Right Click and select Properties on the user you're interested in .
4. In the "Select a page" box, select "Server Roles"
5. Make sure that the "sysadmin" role is selected
6. Press Ok to save the change and close the dialog
7. Exit SSMS
8. Reopen SSMS and login as the User you wanted, and you should now have sufficient Privileges to browse.