Start Menu not remembering recent items frequency

Soryy if this has been discussed before.

I'm running Win 7 ultimate 64 bit version.

Under Vista in the start menu list of recently opened items, those items were sort by their open/access frequncy, top to bottom.

For instance, if you opened Word 10 times a day on average, and firefox 5 times etc. eventually Word would advance towards the top of the list, above firefox which had been opened less times.

It seems this doesnt take place in windows 7 FOR CERTAIN ITEMS ONLY: let's say i play solitaire 15 times a day, well, it gets into the list, but stays at the bottom of the list no matter how many times i close and open it again, it's sitll at the bottom of the list, instead if i click just twice on, say, excell, it immediately gets above solitaire - isnt that strange behaviour?

I have both "store and display..." boxes checked in start menu properties.

I tried changing StartMenuInit key (from the vista tutorial) from 4 to 3, but after restart it reverts back to 4.

Has Microsoft chosen to exclude games from the recent items list ?

Thank you for your patience

well i played a little more with this and found out that when you first start using the start menu (that is, after a windows 7 fresh install) it opens with certain items there (like snipping tool or paint).

Those certain items are for some reason "stuck" in the list until first access - eg i clicked 30 times on word and it never demoted paint in the list until i actually clicked paint for the first time.

Another surspise was when i typed in the start menu some program i had never used before like media center, guess what? It instantly jumped on top of the list after just 1 click?!?! Above word which i'd accessed like 30 times before.

I take it from that behaviour that certain programs are "pre-loaded" with hidden priorities in the list - this was not happening in vista (((

Tews said:

Wouldnt it be easier to pin your favorite games to the taskbar?

first off thanks for replying.

pinning them will do no good since it wouldnt be a great idea to clutter my start menu list with say 10 items pinned on top of another 10 most frequently used items.

i would just like the good old behaviour vista had: a clean list with items being displayed based on STRICT number of access times (so if i open program A 15 times, it should go above program B which was accessed only 13 times, no matter if they're microsoft or not, games or whatever)

if my observations are correct and other folks experience this too, i will take it as a severe drawback from vista, sadly

Individual apps can be excluded from appearing in the recent items list. I will need to search for how this is done.

Without addressing any limitations on how the tool is designed, I will point out that individual docs are listed as a flyout on the apps name.

As in all things code-based - there is a logic being applied. The functionality of the recent items list is far more complex than simply counting occurrences. Check out the flyout for Live Messenger as an example.