File Open History?

The File Open common dialog in Vista includes a drop down on the File name: control that displays a history of files that have been opened.



Does anyone know where this history is stored and how to delete it?

C:\Users\*user name*\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent

To get rid of the history just select everything in it and press delete.

Thanks for your reply, but your solution does not work. It deletes the Recent Items history, which you can also do by right clicking on Recent Items and selecting Clear recent Items List.



However, it does not clear the list of recently opened files that can be obtained by clicking the File name: dropdown in the Open File common dialog.



I have subsequently found that the relevant data is hidden deep in the registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSavePidlMRU. Below this, there are several subkeys for different file types. each with its own MRUListEX value and binary values for the individual recent files. How much of this is it safe to delete?



Chris:w00t:

It would make sence to delete all of it if you want. Make a backup of the registry first than delete all the keys and see what happens. It should then create new keys once you start opening stuff again. You can always restore the registry back how it was.