"Recent docs" folder always empty

I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista Home Premium. In XP I had five user
accounts setup; admin & four standard users. After the upgrade to Vista all
accounts ported well except for one thing. Any documents I open by double
clicking on the file are reflected in the "Recent Items" area as long as I'm
in the Admin. acct. However, in the other four user accts. the "Recent
Items" area is never updated and is always empty no matter how many files are
opened by double clicking. Anyone have an idea why this is and how to
resolve?

compTMan wrote:
> I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista Home Premium. In XP I had five user
> accounts setup; admin & four standard users. After the upgrade to Vista all
> accounts ported well except for one thing. Any documents I open by double
> clicking on the file are reflected in the "Recent Items" area as long as I'm
> in the Admin. acct. However, in the other four user accts. the "Recent
> Items" area is never updated and is always empty no matter how many files are
> opened by double clicking. Anyone have an idea why this is and how to
> resolve?

Are those users set up to store that list? To check, right click the
start button, or an empty area of the task bar, open the "Start Menu"
tab, and make sure the "Store and display a list of recently opened
files" is ticked. If not, click the box to put a tick in it and click OK.

If it is already ticked, you could try unticking it and clicking OK,
then going back and ticking it again. That has been known to solve a few
problems! It might help (I'm not sure) to reboot before re-ticking the
box just to be sure the unticked setting has taken effect.

Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However, I
confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your suggestion
to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help. The
recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature and
started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items" list
never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.



"Mark Bourne" wrote:

> compTMan wrote:
> > I upgraded from Windows XP to Vista Home Premium. In XP I had five user
> > accounts setup; admin & four standard users. After the upgrade to Vista all
> > accounts ported well except for one thing. Any documents I open by double
> > clicking on the file are reflected in the "Recent Items" area as long as I'm
> > in the Admin. acct. However, in the other four user accts. the "Recent
> > Items" area is never updated and is always empty no matter how many files are
> > opened by double clicking. Anyone have an idea why this is and how to
> > resolve?
>
> Are those users set up to store that list? To check, right click the
> start button, or an empty area of the task bar, open the "Start Menu"
> tab, and make sure the "Store and display a list of recently opened
> files" is ticked. If not, click the box to put a tick in it and click OK.
>
> If it is already ticked, you could try unticking it and clicking OK,
> then going back and ticking it again. That has been known to solve a few
> problems! It might help (I'm not sure) to reboot before re-ticking the
> box just to be sure the unticked setting has taken effect.
>

compTMan;449018 Wrote:
> Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However,
> I
> confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your
> suggestion
> to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help.
> The
> recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature
> and
> started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items"
> list
> never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.
>
>

Hi CompTMan,

You might try this tutorial. It is for Recent Programs, but it may
help witht the Recent Documents as well.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89...emembered.html

Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
*Please post feedback to help others.*

Great info Brink. I assume this is the forum for the 64-bit version of Vista.

I followed the tutorial and found that I already have the number "3" in that
Registry item (as I would expect since my "Recent Programs" section was
already working). Now if I could only find the same reg. item for the
"Recent Items/documents."

BTW, I'm running the 32-bit version of Vista.

Ted



"brink" wrote:

>
> compTMan;449018 Wrote:
> > Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However,
> > I
> > confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your
> > suggestion
> > to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help.
> > The
> > recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature
> > and
> > started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items"
> > list
> > never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.
> >
> >
>
> Hi CompTMan,
>
> You might try this tutorial. It is for Recent Programs, but it may
> help witht the Recent Documents as well.
>
> http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89...emembered.html
>
> Shawn
>
>
> --
> brink
>
> *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
> _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
> *Please post feedback to help others.*
>

While browsing the suggested forum I found others that are having the same
problem. I have noticed that my Admin. user account "Recent Items" area does
update properly. Only my standard user accts. don't update the Recent Items
area. After reviewing the post in the other forum, I've found that by going
to the folder C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent my
Admin. user ID has a "Recent Items" file while my other user ID's don't have
this file. So that's the issue. The question is how do we correct it? I could
copy the file from Admin. and paste it in one of the user ID's to see if that
helps but I think there should also be some Registry changes required to get
it to be used properly.

"compTMan" wrote:

> Great info Brink. I assume this is the forum for the 64-bit version of Vista.
>
> I followed the tutorial and found that I already have the number "3" in that
> Registry item (as I would expect since my "Recent Programs" section was
> already working). Now if I could only find the same reg. item for the
> "Recent Items/documents."
>
> BTW, I'm running the 32-bit version of Vista.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> "brink" wrote:
>
> >
> > compTMan;449018 Wrote:
> > > Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However,
> > > I
> > > confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your
> > > suggestion
> > > to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help.
> > > The
> > > recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature
> > > and
> > > started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items"
> > > list
> > > never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Hi CompTMan,
> >
> > You might try this tutorial. It is for Recent Programs, but it may
> > help witht the Recent Documents as well.
> >
> > http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89...emembered.html
> >
> > Shawn
> >
> >
> > --
> > brink
> >
> > *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
> > _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
> > *Please post feedback to help others.*
> >

compTMan;449362 Wrote:
> While browsing the suggested forum I found others that are having the
> same
> problem. I have noticed that my Admin. user account "Recent Items" area
> does
> update properly. Only my standard user accts. don't update the Recent
> Items
> area. After reviewing the post in the other forum, I've found that by
> going
> to the folder C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
> my
> Admin. user ID has a "Recent Items" file while my other user ID's don't
> have
> this file. So that's the issue. The question is how do we correct it? I
> could
> copy the file from Admin. and paste it in one of the user ID's to see
> if that
> helps but I think there should also be some Registry changes required
> to get
> it to be used properly.
>
>

Ok CompTMan,

I did some playing on this, and it seems they are the same item. When I
tried to copy the "Recent" folder into the Standard account, I was asked
if I wanted to replace the "Recent Items" file with it.

If I have both Recent items unchecked (Under Privacy) in the Start Menu
(Customize), then I cannot open "Recent Items" in the Standard account.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72...tems-list.html

If I have them checked, then "Recent Items" opens in a window with the
recently opened items listed in it. You can only see the recent
Documents in the "Recent Items" button in the Start Menu though. It
seems to be working for me. You might look in this folder after you open
a few text files as a test. You can also type "shell:recent" (no
quotes) in the white line (Start Search) area in the Start Menu to open
this location.

Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
*Please post feedback to help others.*

compTMan wrote:
> Great info Brink. I assume this is the forum for the 64-bit version of Vista.

Much of it is also relevant to 32-bit Vista. That site also archives
these newsgroups, so you can find old posts which Microsoft has deleted
from these newsgroups by putting "site:www.vistax64.com words to search
for" (without the quotes) into Google.

>
> I followed the tutorial and found that I already have the number "3" in that
> Registry item (as I would expect since my "Recent Programs" section was
> already working). Now if I could only find the same reg. item for the
> "Recent Items/documents."

It looks like that article explains how to manually change what the
tick-boxes on the dialogue do for you. I can't be certain though.

>
> BTW, I'm running the 32-bit version of Vista.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
> "brink" wrote:
>
>> compTMan;449018 Wrote:
>>> Thanks Mark, I did not know it was an option you could disable. However,
>>> I
>>> confirmed that the option was already selected and I followed your
>>> suggestion
>>> to clear it and select it again with restarts between. It did not help.
>>> The
>>> recent executed programs area was cleared when I disabled that feature
>>> and
>>> started building list again when I re-enabled it but the "Recent Items"
>>> list
>>> never changed, it is still "empty" even though I opened a few files.
>>>
>>>
>> Hi CompTMan,
>>
>> You might try this tutorial. It is for Recent Programs, but it may
>> help witht the Recent Documents as well.
>>
>> http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/89...emembered.html
>>
>> Shawn
>>
>>
>> --
>> brink
>>
>> *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
>> _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
>> *Please post feedback to help others.*
>>

Mark Bourne;449751 Wrote:
> compTMan wrote
>
> Much of it is also relevant to 32-bit Vista. That site also archive
> these newsgroups, so you can find old posts which Microsoft has delete
> from these newsgroups by putting "site:'www.vistax64.com
> (http://www.vistax64.com) words to searc
> for" (without the quotes) into Google
>
>
> It looks like that article explains how to manually change what th
> tick-boxes on the dialogue do for you. I can't be certain though

Hi Mark

Yes, most of it is the same for the 32 bit Vista as well

The regedit article for this resets the Start menu for the Recen
Programs so that it will not default to a blank state everytime yo
logon to that account in Vista. Sometimes unticking the Recent ticks i
the Start menu and restarting the computer then ticking them back helps
but not always.

Hope this helps explain it better
Shaw

--
brin

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")
*Please post feedback to help others.*

OK, this seems to explain one curious thing I saw. When logged on as the
Admin. if I select the "Recent Items" file in the folder (by following the
path), at the bottom of the window the properties of the Recent Items file
are shown. There it says the file is shared with my other standard user ID.
I saw this earlier and thought this maybe a problem, but based on your
comments that is as it should be (one file used by all).

While logged on as Admin. if I open a file I can see it reflected in the
Recent Items file. However, while logged on as a standard user if I open a
file it is not listed in the Recent Items file. Further testing finds that
if I attempt to open the file from the standard user ID using your
"shell:recent" command, I'm told I don't have permission to view this file.
It then ask me to enter the Admin. password. When I enter the correct
password I'm "denied access" and total to use the "security tab" to gain
access.

Ted



"brink" wrote:

>
> compTMan;449362 Wrote:
> > While browsing the suggested forum I found others that are having the
> > same
> > problem. I have noticed that my Admin. user account "Recent Items" area
> > does
> > update properly. Only my standard user accts. don't update the Recent
> > Items
> > area. After reviewing the post in the other forum, I've found that by
> > going
> > to the folder C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent
> > my
> > Admin. user ID has a "Recent Items" file while my other user ID's don't
> > have
> > this file. So that's the issue. The question is how do we correct it? I
> > could
> > copy the file from Admin. and paste it in one of the user ID's to see
> > if that
> > helps but I think there should also be some Registry changes required
> > to get
> > it to be used properly.
> >
> >
>
> Ok CompTMan,
>
> I did some playing on this, and it seems they are the same item. When I
> tried to copy the "Recent" folder into the Standard account, I was asked
> if I wanted to replace the "Recent Items" file with it.
>
> If I have both Recent items unchecked (Under Privacy) in the Start Menu
> (Customize), then I cannot open "Recent Items" in the Standard account.
>
> http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/72...tems-list.html
>
> If I have them checked, then "Recent Items" opens in a window with the
> recently opened items listed in it. You can only see the recent
> Documents in the "Recent Items" button in the Start Menu though. It
> seems to be working for me. You might look in this folder after you open
> a few text files as a test. You can also type "shell:recent" (no
> quotes) in the white line (Start Search) area in the Start Menu to open
> this location.
>
> Shawn
>
>
> --
> brink
>
> *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
> _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
> *Please post feedback to help others.*
>