Recent documents in Outlook

[Scott]

If we are on computer questions today, can I ask why my Outlook programs seem to have stopped showing my recent documents?

I have tried varying the number in options.

[John Rumm]

Do you actually mean outlook? (if so which version)

What do you mean by recent documents? (do you mean emails?)

Number of what, in which options?

[Scott]

Sorry - I meant Office.

I meant Word, Excel and Access files.

These are the options in the 'File' tab in Advanced > Display > Show this number of recent documents.

Apologies. This must have been the worst posting I have ever composed !!!

[Andy Burns]

Have you got shortcuts for word/excel/etc pinned to either the start menu, or the task bar (but not a desktop shortcut)? If you right click one of them do the recent documents show there?

[Scott]

No. Just 'Excel 2103' and 'Unpin from taskbar'.

Or at start menu 'Unpin from taskbar', 'Run as administrator' and 'Open file location'.

I even tried to repair Office but this did not resolve the problem.

[John Rumm]

Ah, ok that makes more sense!

ok, do you mean the Most Recently Used lists as shown in the applications themselves, or the recent items as listed from the windows start menu?

No worries, easily done!

[Scott]

The latter. If I open Word today, no recent documents are shown even though I have used Word recently. Bizarrely, Excel shows two recent documents but I am not convinced they are the most recently used ones. I wonder if it is something to do with clearing Cookies (using CCleaner) or Registry First Aid. I don't think it can be RFA as I only use it once a week and would expect a week's history to remain.

[Robin]

On the plus side you kept me distracted for a few minutes while I pondered why after 20-odd years I still didn't know Outlook had "recent documents" :)

Anyhow, can you log into Windows as a different user and see if Word etc then have recent documents listed?

[Scott]

On the contrary, my 'administrator' persona shows no recent documents at all while my 'user' persona shows some (at present).

[GB]

If all else fails, uninstall office, reboot, reinstall office, and stop using RFA. :)

[Dave W]

In Word under Tools>Options>General-tab have you got 'Recently used file-list' checked?

All these programs show last-used files even though they are anything but recent.

[Andy Burns]

Is this Win10? If so

start > settings > personalisation > start

Is show recently opened items in jump lists ... turned on?

[John Rumm]

Which version of windows?

Also have a look at:

[Robin]

That fits with it being CCleaner which used to clean recent documents by default. They claimed to have changed that in version 5.36.6278. Was yours that or later?

And while that could explain the lists /starting/ empty, it doesn't explain them /staying/ empty after you have opened and closed some documents/workbooks. On that you could compare the registry keys for Office for the 2 users. See eg

[Scott]

Is that the same as File > Options > General (General options for working with Word)? I cannot find it there.

I am on Office 2013.

[Scott]

Yes, Windows 10. It was off so I have tried turning it on now.

[Scott]

5.66.7716

I should explain they remain during the session but disappear subsequently.

I shall investigate, but I am always nervous of the registry :-)

[Scott]

Windows 10

Thanks. That particular key is not present in any of the three locations.

[Robin]

Ahem, yes. Any chance you left CCleaner to run in the background? I don't use it (and deprecate it) so I've no idea what it gets up to these days but it used to "have form". Should show in Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+ESC) under the Processes tab.

IMO very sensible

[John Rumm]

That's good - it means the MRU list is not being explicitly cleared on log off.