How can I stop URLs (but allow programs) appearing in Start | Run?

[Jim]

Hi

Yesterday when using Start Run Open to run a program as I often do, I
noticed that when I typed the first letter lots of URLs appeared, as
possibilities for what I wanted.

This has never, ever happened to me before. I would have noticed,
because I noticed yesterday when it did happen, immediately, as you do
when something happens differently or unexpectedly. I looked this up
on Google groups and around the web and was amazed to see that this is
apparently normal. And that previously, when only programs "popped up"
as suggestions, and URLs did not, it was "abnormal".

I find this baffling. I can't think of why anybody would want to "run"
a URL from the start menu, and now it's happening to me, I find it
incredibly annoying that it gets in the way of what I DO want to run,
which is programs.

Usually, it's the same few programs, regedit, netstat, etc, and I did
find it useful to be able to just type in the first one or two letters
and press the arrow key down to finish it.

I aslo find Autocomplete in IE useful too (for URLs only), and would
like to keep it enabled as I always have done. Most suggestions about
Start | Run problems suggest disabling Autocomplete, but it's useful,
espcially for someone as good a typo-ist as me.

What makes it even more annoying is that even when the history is
deleted in IE, websites still popup which have somehow escaped being
deleted, sites which I haven't been to for ages (and which there's no
reference to anywhere on the PC - I even searched the entire PC for
files "containing text" of part of one of the URLs and it found
nothing). I am assuming it's just the Win XP search that doesn't work
properly, as I have heard, and the win2k one works ok.

That is an annoying bug which I have put up with in IE, and which I
believe plagued other Windows versions, but find even more irritating
in the Run box, where as far as I am concerned, no URLs should be, let
alone ones I haven't been to in ages and can't delete.

Sorry for this long post, but can anyone help? This seems to be a
problem nobody knows the answer too, but this has only just started
now (yesterday), previously only programs appeared in Run, not URLs,
and I would like it back to the way it was.

Thanks for any help.

Btw, is it acceptable to crosspost in these microsoft groups? I have
win2k, but I suspect this issue probably affects winXP too.

 

[George Hester]

If you take a look at this article it seems that what you want to do is all or nothing:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301691

I assume you could stop the MRU from appearing in the Run dialog box by going to regedit to this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

This would be a binary type with name NoRecentDocsHistory with data 00 00 00 00 But then you would have no MRU anywhere.

Or you can look in Group Policy to see if you can get more specific. I looked and some there seem applicable. The place is on Group Policy | User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows Explorer. Use the Windows Help to bring up Group Policy.