"Recent docs" folder always empty

[Guest]

I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista Home Premium. In XP I had five user
accounts setup; admin & four standard users. After the upgrade to Vista all
accounts ported well except for one thing. Any documents I open by double
clicking on the file are reflected in the "Recent Items" area as long as I'm
in the Admin. acct. However, in the other four user accts. the "Recent
Items" area is never updated and is always empty no matter how many files are
opened by double clicking. Anyone have an idea why this is and how to
resolve?

 

[Mark Bourne]

I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista Home Premium. In XP I had five user
accounts setup; admin & four standard users. After the upgrade to Vista all
accounts ported well except for one thing. Any documents I open by double
clicking on the file are reflected in the "Recent Items" area as long as I'm
in the Admin. acct. However, in the other four user accts. the "Recent
Items" area is never updated and is always empty no matter how many files are
opened by double clicking. Anyone have an idea why this is and how to
resolve?

Are those users set up to store that list? To check, right click the
start button, or an empty area of the task bar, open the "Start Menu"
tab, and make sure the "Store and display a list of recently opened
files" is ticked. If not, click the box to put a tick in it and click OK.

If it is already ticked, you could try unticking it and clicking OK,
then going back and ticking it again. That has been known to solve a few
problems! It might help (I'm not sure) to reboot before re-ticking the
box just to be sure the unticked setting has taken effect.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However, I
confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your suggestion
to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help. The
recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature and
started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items" list
never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.

 

[Guest]

Great info Brink. I assume this is the forum for the 64-bit version of Vista.

I followed the tutorial and found that I already have the number "3" in that
Registry item (as I would expect since my "Recent Programs" section was
already working). Now if I could only find the same reg. item for the
"Recent Items/documents."

BTW, I'm running the 32-bit version of Vista.

Ted

 

[Guest]

While browsing the suggested forum I found others that are having the same
problem. I have noticed that my Admin. user account "Recent Items" area does
update properly. Only my standard user accts. don't update the Recent Items
area. After reviewing the post in the other forum, I've found that by going
to the folder C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent my
Admin. user ID has a "Recent Items" file while my other user ID's don't have
this file. So that's the issue. The question is how do we correct it? I could
copy the file from Admin. and paste it in one of the user ID's to see if that
helps but I think there should also be some Registry changes required to get
it to be used properly.

 

[Mark Bourne]

Great info Brink. I assume this is the forum for the 64-bit version of Vista.

Much of it is also relevant to 32-bit Vista. That site also archives
these newsgroups, so you can find old posts which Microsoft has deleted
from these newsgroups by putting "site:www.vistax64.com words to search
for" (without the quotes) into Google.

I followed the tutorial and found that I already have the number "3" in that
Registry item (as I would expect since my "Recent Programs" section was
already working). Now if I could only find the same reg. item for the
"Recent Items/documents."

It looks like that article explains how to manually change what the
tick-boxes on the dialogue do for you. I can't be certain though.

 

[Guest]

OK, this seems to explain one curious thing I saw. When logged on as the
Admin. if I select the "Recent Items" file in the folder (by following the
path), at the bottom of the window the properties of the Recent Items file
are shown. There it says the file is shared with my other standard user ID.
I saw this earlier and thought this maybe a problem, but based on your
comments that is as it should be (one file used by all).

While logged on as Admin. if I open a file I can see it reflected in the
Recent Items file. However, while logged on as a standard user if I open a
file it is not listed in the Recent Items file. Further testing finds that
if I attempt to open the file from the standard user ID using your
"shell:recent" command, I'm told I don't have permission to view this file.
It then ask me to enter the Admin. password. When I enter the correct
password I'm "denied access" and total to use the "security tab" to gain
access.

Ted

While browsing the suggested forum I found others that are having the
same
problem. I have noticed that my Admin. user account "Recent Items" area
does
update properly. Only my standard user accts. don't update the Recent
Items
area. After reviewing the post in the other forum, I've found that by
going
to the folder C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
my
Admin. user ID has a "Recent Items" file while my other user ID's don't
have
this file. So that's the issue. The question is how do we correct it? I
could
copy the file from Admin. and paste it in one of the user ID's to see
if that
helps but I think there should also be some Registry changes required
to get
it to be used properly.

Ok CompTMan,

I did some playing on this, and it seems they are the same item. When I
tried to copy the "Recent" folder into the Standard account, I was asked
if I wanted to replace the "Recent Items" file with it.

If I have both Recent items unchecked (Under Privacy) in the Start Menu
(Customize), then I cannot open "Recent Items" in the Standard account.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72816-recent-items-list.html

If I have them checked, then "Recent Items" opens in a window with the
recently opened items listed in it. You can only see the recent
Documents in the "Recent Items" button in the Start Menu though. It
seems to be working for me. You might look in this folder after you open
a few text files as a test. You can also type "shell:recent" (no
quotes) in the white line (Start Search) area in the Start Menu to open
this location.

Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
*Please post feedback to help others.*

 

[Guest]

Well, I finally solved my problem with the help of some advice from Mark,
brink, and dean-dean (Vistax64 forum). Just to recap my problem, I could log
in as the Admin. and the "Recent Items" would update whenever a file is
opened. However, when I'm logged in under a standard user ID the Recent
Items area would not update.

By looking at the registry as defined earlier in this thread, my "Recent
Items" for standard users was pointing to a shortcut located in the
C:\User\(your name) directory. I could not determine where the shortcut was
pointing because if I attempted to open it's properties I was denied access
because I "didn't have permission" (even if I was logged in as the Admin.).
So taking the advice of Mark/brink earlier in this thread I deleted the
shortcut file and entered the SHELL:RECENT command in the "Start Search" area
of the START menu to create the special file required for the Recent Items
area. This apparently worked because the Recent Items window opened.

I then went to the START menu but did not see the "Recent Items" menu item,
so taking another of dean-dean's suggestions I opened the "properties" area
of the START button and cleared the checks on the following:

"Store and display a list of recently opened files..."
"Store and display a list of recently opened program..."

I performed a restart, logged back into my standard user ID (not my Admin.
ID), and opened the properties area of the START button again. I reselected
the two items above (replaced the checks for each item) and clicked APPLY. My
Recent Items area now works properly, recording any files that are opened.

Thanks for all your help and I hope my narative here helps others to solve
their problem as well.