Recent Items History

[solon fox]

Hi,

I noticed yesterday that for reasons unknown that the 'Recent Items'
on the Start menu were no longer updating. My Recent Items were old.

However, recent files in Office were being updated.

I found in the properties of Start that 'Store and display a list of
recently opened files' was checked. I tried toggling this off/on to no
effect. Recent Items were still not updating.

I looked for a way to clear Recent Items, but didn't find a good way
to do it. Finally I went to C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft
\Windows\Recent and deleted the 95 shortcuts that I found there.

Now, Recent Items is working just fine.

My questions:
1) Is there a proper way to clear Recent Items history?
2) Any theory on what happened and why the Recent Items pipe got
clogged up?
3) How about a one sentence definition on each in AppData about a)
Local, b) LocalLow and c) Roaming?

I'm curious.

-solon fox

 

[blheems]

Hey, that worked for me! Now I'll just have to shortcut that folder
so I can do that when I start having problems.

I was having a slightly different problem. I couldn't delete the
items from the "Recent Items" list. Sure it looked like I deleted
them, but next time I looked, POOF, THERE BACK! So KILL THEM ALL and
start over.

On Vista Home Premium after a forced reinstall from D:\ because of a
OS MELTDOWN.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[solon fox]

Hey, that worked for me!  Now I'll just have to shortcut that folder
so I can do that when I start having problems.

I was having a slightly different problem.  I couldn't delete the
items from the "Recent Items" list.  Sure it looked like I deleted
them, but next time I looked, POOF, THERE BACK!  So KILL THEM ALL and
start over.

On Vista Home Premium after a forced reinstall from D:\ because of a
OS MELTDOWN.

Thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,

Even though I don't know what broke 'Recent Items' history in the
first place, this is why it is important to post these little tidbits
when they happen to you. I am really glad that you found this and that
it helped your problem as well. Thanks for noticing.

-solon fox