Windows 7: Recent Items - Turn On or Off

Hello NeoRitz, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Could you post back with a screenshot showing all of the right pane at each these two registry locations below? There may be some entry at either one of these locations that may be responsible for this.

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

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Thanks a lot Brink,
I'm posting both the screen shots here.
Deleted the key for NoRecentDocsHistory in CurrentUser Policies.
And then restarted the system.
Now the option's enabled.
Thanks and regards,
NeoRitz

You're welcome NeoRitz. That would be the one. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

UPDATE:
New tutorial for enabling and disabling Recent Items.
Recent Items - Enable or Disable

Option 1 restored my jump lists, Thanks. It may be a coincidence. But my jump lists disappeared when I installed google chrome

Hello Nsbjsn,

When recent items and programs is turned off and back on, it will clear their history leaving a nearly empty jump list. You'll have to reopen these items again (possibly a few times) before they eventually show back up again.

Is the jump list completely missing, or just empty?

Installing chrome may have reset them again if just empty. If completely missing, then see if uninstalling chrome restores them.

All is fixed, didn't have to uninstall chrome. I just used your option one above, Thanks

That's great news Nsbjsn. I'm happy to hear that you got it fixed.

I had a 'recent' folder instead of 'recent items' folder initially in appdata/roaming folder and I accidentally dragged it out to desktop instead of right clicking and deleting it. Once it was in the desktop, the delete option when the icon is right clicked disappeared, and the only way to remove it was to drag into the recycle bin and empty it. After that I thought typing shell:recent would create a new and proper 'Recent Items' in the appdata\roaming\Microsoft\Windows folder. A working Recent Items folder seems to have been created but instead it is now always created on the desktop instead of the original position (the appdata\roaming). Even after restarting, it does not solve the issue. Any ideas or solutions?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello Xiaolufer, and welcome to Seven Forums.

See if dragging or moving the Recent Items on your desktop back into the C:\Users\(User Name)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows may help.

If not, then make sure that the registry (regedit.exe) locations below have the correct path for the Recent expandable string value in the right pane. If not, then right click on Recent, click on Modify, enter the correct path, and click on OK. Afterwards, restart the computer and do what you have in the quote box again to fix the Recent folder.



HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
(Use the same path, but substitute User-Name in the path with your user account's name instead.)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
(Use the exact same path as below for Recent.)

Hope this helps,
Shawn

thanks! dragging didnt work but changing the registry as u mentioned did