Problem with Recent Programs list.

[Jophess]

Hello, yesterday I did a clean installation of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit that I received through MSDNAA. Everything has been working perfectly except for the recent programs list in the start menu.

The only programs that ever show up are the ones that are there to begin with, such as Internet Explorer, Calculator, Sticky Notes, etc.

In the start menu properties, the "Store and display recently opened programs in the Start Menu" box is checked, but the programs do not show up.

Has anybody else experienced this problem, or maybe have a solution to it?

Thanks for your time.

 

[7Dreams]

In The Privacy Bar Do You Have Both Things Checked.

 

[Jophess]

Yes, both boxes under Privacy are checked.

 

[Brink]

Hello Jophess, and welcome to Seven Forums.

The tutorial below may be able to help with this. Be sure to also check what is in the red warning box as well.

Recent Programs Not Being Remembered - Vista Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Jophess]

I just went through the tutorial and changing it both ways, with the download and manually, the value of StartMenuInit goes back to 4 after a restart or log out.

 

[Brink]

Jophess,

That's perfectly normal. Changing it to 3 causes Windows 7 to reset Recent Programs in the Start Menu. Afterwards it automatically changes back to 4. Did everything in the red warning box check out ok?

 

[Jophess]

Yeah, everything seems like it should be working, but recently opened programs still don't appear on the list.

 

[Brink]

If toggling Recent Programs and Items off and on does not help, then you might create a new administrator account to see if it works ok in it instead.

 

[harpua]

Gee, I just checked and I don't have that registry key (startmenuinit). Is that key really supposed to be there by default in Win 7 at the location specified in the Vista tutorial linked above?

 

[Brink]

Hello Peter,

It should be there by default like below. If not, then you can do the download in STEP TWO at that link to restore it. Are you having any problems with Recent Programs?

 

[harpua]

Now that you mention it, yes, I think so. They seem to show up eventually but not following the first access of a given program. I just manually added that key and value to the registry but haven't rebooted yet. I guess I'll see if that helps after next time I reboot. I already had recent programs properly set in start menu, properties, customize.

The only other key I have in the "advanced" folder is "taskbarsizemove." That seems odd considering all the stuff in there in your screenshot. However, I do have the "administrative tools" item showing up on the start menu, even though there is nothing about that in that advanced folder.

 

[Brink]

That's strange Peter. As a test, create a new administrator account to see if you have more than that in the Advanced folder while logged on to the new account.

 

[harpua]

That's strange Peter. As a test, create a new administrator account to see if you have more than that in the Advanced folder while logged on to the new account.

Tried that and the Advanced folder in the new administrator account did seem to have the full number of items one would expect. 21 to be exact.

This is very odd, now I'm not sure what to do. Maybe run sfc?

 

[Brink]

Peter,

You can copy the contents of you old account's user folders into the corresponding new account's user folders. If everything checks out ok in the new account afterwards, then you can delete the old account from within the new one.

 

[Jophess]

Well, I decided to just reinstall Windows 7 since I literally only had Firefox installed and the Recent Programs list is working as normal.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[harpua]

Peter,

You can copy the contents of you old account's user folders into the corresponding new account's user folders. If everything checks out ok in the new account afterwards, then you can delete the old account from within the new one.

I'll give that a try. I would try anything to avoid doing a clean install as I have so many apps installed and tweaked, it would take me at least a couple of days of work to do a clean install and get everything the way I want it.

Could you be more specific about which folders I should copy from the old registry into the new registry? Or do you just mean, my user account folder that's not in the registry at all?

 

[harpua]

Well I tried doing what Shawn suggested above by copying my old user account over to the new administrator account's user account. Before it even completed the copying process (which would have taken all day according to the estimated time displayed), it changed the registry entry we were discussing above so it only contained the same (now two) entries that my original user account's registry contained. So the procedure did not have the desired effect and I canceled it before completion.

Unfortunately, I could not tell which item it was that was being copied over which caused the registry to change like that.

In the meantime, I toggled the store and display recent files checkboxes on and off and recent files are at least properly being retained and displayed, at least until the total number of items allowed is reached. After that I have a feeling it will go back to not replacing the oldest item with the most recent item very quickly again. At least everything else seems to be working normally without all those missing registry entries as far as I can tell.

 

[Brink]

Peter,

You will be copying the contents of the old user account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders into the corresponding new account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders. Not anything to do with the registry.

 

[harpua]

Yes, thanks. As I said above, I tried that and it changed the new registry to look just like the old one before it even got through copying the entire user account.

 

[Brink]

Yes, thanks. As I said above, I tried that and it changed the new registry to look just like the old one before it even got through copying the entire user account.

If you copied the registry, then yes it will have messed everything up. Did you copy only the user folders (suppose to), registry, or both?