Vista - Where are my Recent Places?

Hi Shawn,

I went, I checked - all as you showed... then I looked again at Recent
Places and voila! Two new places corresponding to Office 2002 saved file
locations...

So... Recent Places is in fact Recent Save Locations - bad labelling, I had
previously tried Opening things in IE/Excel because it didn't qualify itself
properly. And I would conceptually distinguish a Place from an Item... I
might want to remember Places but not specific files (Items), so the Option
should be different. And I think Recent Items remembers things Opened...

Many thanks for helping clarify another Vista muddle

It is in fact just what I wanted - except that Office 2002 has it's own
built in Save dlogs and it doesn't help there [But I'm not upgrading -
Word 2007 doesn't work the way I want in certain key respects peculiar to me!]

Julian

"brink" wrote:

>
> Julian;330074 Wrote:
> > Hi Brink - yes, it looks like that except there is nothing in the right
> > hand
> > pane... scratch that: clicking on Recent Places has no effect - the
> > previously selected place remains selected and its contents appear on
> > the
> > right.
> >
> >
>
> Hi Julian,
>
> I think I found it. When you check these two and apply in Start Menu's
> properties :
>
> 99
>
> Then, when you go back to Recents it's different. Notice that (in red
> circles) it has a new listing. One that changes and remembers it's own
> items in right pane.
>
> 100
>
> Hope this helps,
> Shawn
>
>
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
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> |Download: http://vista64.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=100|
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>
> --
> brink
>
> "Practice makes perfect, then you reinstall"
> '_www.Vistax64.com_' (http://www.vistax64.com/www.Vistax64.com)
> Please post feedback to help others
>

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 00:36:07 -0700, Julian wrote:

> Not a bad idea except:
>
> Firefox is my default browser, so I fired up IE7 explicitly and opened a
> file on disk - checked that it was there in the history, checked History
> settings (20 days, 50MB), didn't quit IE and checked in Notepad's SaveAs and
> Open dialogs... Recent Places *does* nothing (I was wrong when I said it was
> empty - clicking it doesn't cause any change in the files pane - but see
> below)

All the other various types of history are tracked regardless of what is
used as the default browser. When I finally get Recent Places to show up,
selecting it changes shows a list of recently accessed folders. One of
these has to be double clicked to place it into the breadcrumb
trail/address bar at the top of the dialog box.

Aside: Although the "recent places" sounds like it should be useful, I'm
not seeing anything helpful in this list. Yes my recent places are listed
but they include things like:
-folders that I unzipped files to: deleted after I moved the contents to
permanent homes
-folders that I downloaded to: generally use one folder for this but on
occasion direct to alternate locations
- random folders that I peeked in for one reason or another
- folders that no longer exist.

28 listings in all. I'm not getting an automatic refresh after deleting
shortcuts for folders that no longer exist.

> I don't have any trail cleaners at the moment...

I believe you but just want to remind that trail cleaners could include
anything from the oddly named program "crap cleaner" to privacy features
within programs like AdAware.

> So... I checked the Start Menu properties, and under Privacy I did not have
> remember recent files checked... so I checked it, opened a couple of files
> (in IE7 and Excel) and although Recent *Items* appears on the start menu it
> remains empty... but now clicking on Recent Places *does* cause the files pan
> to change... to empty!

Checking/unchecking files might reset the flags. It will take some time for
the lists to rebuild. I have both items checked in that Privacy area: files
and programs. I unchecked both and the recent places list cleared out as
well as recent programs and recent items. So I checked both again and
started poking around in folders.

Clicking a folder so that its contents were displayed, did not add it to
the list of recent places.

Selecting and opening a file within a folder, added that folder to recent
places.

I now have 2 items in my recent places list - the two folders that I opened
files from while writing this post.

--
Sharon F
MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User

Julian,

Glad to hear.

Shawn

On Fri, 1 Jun 2007 05:48:12 -0700, Julian wrote:

> So... Recent Places is in fact Recent Save Locations

Add to that - locations (folders) where files have been opened (possibly a
double click required) by the user.

--
Sharon F
MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User

If you want to properly erase your recent items history from vista ultimate on your start menu. Try this step first before editing your registry keys. You'll find it to be much easier and much more effective. Not only can you clear the list entirely but you can selectively remove certain items while leaving the remainder.

Step 1:
Go to the following Command line
C:\Users\YourUserNameHere\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent

Step 2:
Delete the selected short cuts. You can delete some or all.

Step 3:
Empty the Recycling Bin.

Step 4:
Verify that the deleted contents found within your Recent Items folder are in fact deleted.
Done!

Allo other methods that I have found require more difficult procedures such as editing reg keys and logging off. This seems to be the easiest and has proven reliable.

Please note the files can be restored from a prior date using more advanced methods. I will show how to trace recent items history in another entry.

Thank you.

Rocco IV