Disable right-click menu for Taskbar application icons only?

Orcadian · 09 Jun 2022

- I do want Explorer's desktop, file & folder right-click menus to be visible.
- I do want the PC to remember my recent files, which I can view by going to C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent.

But I do not want to see the long list of ‘recent files’/’most visited’ that springs up when I right-click on an application icon on the taskbar. See screenshot examples.

Is there any way of achieving these three things at the same time? I have read gadzillions of posts/suggestions on this but no luck so far.

Brink · 09 Jun 2022

Hello,

You could use an option in the tutorial below to limit how many "Recent" items you see in those jump lists to help.

Jump Lists - Change Number of Recent Items to Display

Orcadian · 09 Jun 2022

Hi Brink. Thanks for the suggestion. I am afraid that changing the 'jump list' size might erase all the entries in C:\Users\Me\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent. I find those shortcuts incredibly useful, as my memory is very poor. There are around 100 shortcuts in there at the moment.

In April (via Start menu\Properties) I tried turning off 'Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and Taskbar' - but this erased all my Recent shortcuts.

Can you confirm that this will not happen again if I adjust the 'jump list'?

Brink · 09 Jun 2022

It will not delete them, but it will limit how many will show.

Orcadian · 09 Jun 2022

Thanks.. Let's hope so! It's late here (UK) now but I will try this and report back.

Orcadian · 16 Jul 2022

Hello Brink, and anyone else reading this thread. Reporting back, as promised.

Sorry for the delay; I've had some issues with Restore - needed it, only to discover that it is turned off by default, and must be switched on manually by the user.

Anyway, all fine now.

So I made a copy of my Recent Items folder, just in case.
Then I did right-click on Start Menu \ Properties \ Customise.
Then I set 'recent items in Jump Lists' to 5.

And after this, the 'jump list' is indeed much shorter - and (joy) Recent Items is indeed not empty (though some items that I have not touched today are mysteriously no longer there. Hmmm.) I have not yet rebooted but if anything changes post-reboot, I'll post that here.

All in all, I'd count that a success, so thanks for the help!

Brink · 16 Jul 2022

Glad it will work for you.

Orcadian · 17 Jul 2022

Post-reboot update

Well, Recent Items is largely still there* - but most of the jpg shortcuts have disappeared. Oddly, the png ones are still there! I'm wondering if there is some other parameter somewhere that needs to be set, i.e. whether there are separate 'quotas' (or expiry dates?) for different sorts of shortcut?

The oldest shortcuts were 14 Jun 2022, mp3 and .webm - and those are still there. There are 145 items on my Copy Recent Items folder. (Recent Items itself has a larger number of shortcuts, owing - I'm told - to invisible system files.)

I do not know what the default number of Recent Items is, or whether that can be changed? I'd like to set it to as large a value as possible.

* In fact there are many small differences beween Recent Items now, and the copy I made yesterday. I have not re-opened any files, so the shortcuts should still have their original dates. Strange.