Can MY RECENT DOCUMENTS be disabled or invisible?

[drctest]

Is there a way to disable or make invisible, the drop-down list which appears
when you click on My Recent Documents? This is a confidentiality issue on
shared computers.

Thank you,
drctest

 

[Jay Freedman]

Is there a way to disable or make invisible, the drop-down list which
appears when you click on My Recent Documents? This is a
confidentiality issue on shared computers.

Thank you,
drctest

At the simplest, you can go into the Options dialog (Tools > Options >
General in Word 2003 and earlier; Office button > Word Options > Advanced >
Display in Word 2007) and set the number of recent documents to zero.
However, this relies on all users of shared computers to leave it set that
way.

A more tamper-resistant method involves using the TweakUI program (download
from
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx). If
you uncheck the "Add new documents to Documents on Start Menu" check box on
the IE tab of TweakUI, that will also prevent adding documents to the Recent
Documents list anywhere in Office, and it will also disable the option
mentioned above. See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=284896 for
explanation.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307875 "How To Display,
Use, and Clear 'My Recent Documents' on the Start Menu in Windows
XP".

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

Another thing you might try is to close Word, start regedit,
browse to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\NoRecentDocsHistory" key, and
set the key value to binary 01 00 00 00. If the key does not
exist, then create a new DWORD key.

 

[Jay Freedman]

Just to clarify that garfield-n-odie and I are giving you the same advice, the
first paragraph under "More Information" in the KB article at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=284896 says that TweakUI sets the value of
the NoRecentDocsHistory registry entry.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.