[deepkent]

My recent documents have disappeared. The folder is still on the Start menu, and I have enabled it, but there is nothing in it. And there is nothing in Recent Documents in Paintshop Pro, Photoshop Elements, etc. I tried turning it off on the Start menu and then turning it on again, but nothing. I have determined that the Recent folder works by copying something into it manually; then it appears, but not in the normal way. I have History in Word, etc, but I guess that's a different thing. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be grateful! Thanks.

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various security, privacy and file cleaning programs clear these out.

Anythng like that on your machine

[gerryf]

various security, privacy and file cleaning programs clear these out.

Anythng like that on your machine

[deepkent]

Yes, I do, but I have had them for months or years. I do occasionally clear out the recent documents, either through those programs or by way of Microsoft's clean-up tool. But once they have been cleaned out, they should return, shouldn't they? The list should not be empty. And as I said, I have manually added a file to c:\documents and settings\<username>\recent, and that document appears in Recent Documents on the Start Menu. But nothing that I haven't added myself ever shows up.

[gerryf]

try

http://www.kellys-ko...m/xp_tweaks.htm

line 55

It should restore the registry setting if the registry was corrupted

[deepkent]

Thanks, Gerry. It isn't in fact a .reg file, but instructions on editing the registry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
"NoRecentDocsHistory"=dword:00000000
"NoRecentDocsMenu"=dword:00000000

I ran regedit and found that I didn't have a DWord value called NoRecentDocsMenu. So I created one and set it to 0. NoRecentDocsHistory was set to 1, so I set it to 0 as well. I'm assuming that's right - 0 to switch off "No". I then opened a couple of files and changed and saved them. But none of them appeared in Recent Documents, just like before. If I've made any wrong assumptions, I'd be grateful to be told. But thanks for your time.

[deepkent]

By the way, perhaps I should have said that the only thing in c:\documents and settings\<username>\recent is desktop.ini. Should that be there?

[deepkent]

Sorry to keep updating "on the fly", but there is one improvement: "recent documents" have returned inside individual programs - but the Start Menu folder is still empty.