Recently Used Programs/Documents Missing

Somehow my Frequently Used Programs and Recent Documents disappeared from the start menu (not just reset - they are completely gone and have been for a long while now). I've tried changing the Start Menu Properties, but to no avail. The problem may have started after I used CCleaner but it's so long ago that I've had this problem that I don't actually remember for sure.

The recent folder in my user profile does seem to be updated and has shortcuts to documents that I have used recently.

I noticed that there is a lot of advanced Windows discussion going on in this forum and wondered if anyone had any ideas how to get these to Recent Documents & Frequently Used Programs to show up on the start menu. It's not a big problem but I'm just curious to see if it can be fixed.

I hope that this is the right place to post this message. Thanks in advance for any ideas.

PS I'm using Windows XP SP3.

Edited by ec2011, 02 October 2011 - 01:50 PM.

Hi,

Open the Registry Editor and locate this path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Make sure the keys there point to the right folders on your profile dir.

Thanks very much for your quick reply. The paths referenced by those registry keys all look fine. I opened the folder that was listed for 'recent', and it has all the shortcuts in it to documents that I have recently opened.

So they're totally gone, and won't come back? It didn't just wipe them once?

Go into the general tab of the customize window, and double check that "Number Of Program On Start Menu" isn't set to 0.

If it isn't, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer in the registry, and look for a key called NoStartMenuMFUprogramsList or NoInstrumentation. If they are there, if their values are 1, set them to 0, then restart your computer.

Yes - they're totally gone and won't come back.

I've checked the Taskbar & Start Menu Properties -> Customise -> Number of Programs on start menu, and I've tried setting it to zero and then setting it back to 6 again to see if that helps, but it hasn't worked.

The two keys that you mention aren't there at all. I think I've checked those in the past as well.

Thanks very much for your help. Any other ideas?

Yes - they're totally gone and won't come back.

I've checked the Taskbar & Start Menu Properties -> Customise -> Number of Programs on start menu, and I've tried setting it to zero and then setting it back to 6 again to see if that helps, but it hasn't worked.

The two keys that you mention aren't there at all. I think I've checked those in the past as well.

Thanks very much for your help. Any other ideas?

Go into the start menu properties, click "Customize", go to the Advanced tab, and be sure that "List my most recently opened documents" is checked. If it is, then I don't know what your problem could be. You could always just reinstall Windows. If you don't want to do that, just drag/drop icons into your start menu that you use commonly. They'll stay there until your remove them.

Go into the start menu properties, click "Customize", go to the Advanced tab, and be sure that "List my most recently opened documents" is checked. If it is, then I don't know what your problem could be. You could always just reinstall Windows. If you don't want to do that, just drag/drop icons into your start menu that you use commonly. They'll stay there until your remove them.

The Customize -> Advanced -> List my most recently opened documents is already checked. I tried checking it and checking it again.
Yeah I have pinned a couple of things to the start menu, but it would be nice to work out why the thing stopped working in the first place. Anyway, thanks very much for your help.