Microsoft has introduced so called jumplists in Windows 7. These jumplists are part of the Windows 7 taskbar and appear when the user right-clicks an item in the taskbar. They usually display the most recent items that have been opened and can also contain shortcut links to program functions. One example of this would be a jumplist for an email program that contains links to tasks such as writing emails or checking for new mails.
The recent items that are displayed can be a security and privacy risk. Even more so as there are no obvious means to delete and manage them effectively. The only option that a user has is to right-click specific recent items in the jumplist for options to delete that item.
There is no option to delete all items or to exclude items from being displayed in the jumplist.
What most Windows 7 users do not know is that Microsoft is storing the recent items list in a super-hidden directory that cannot be accessed directly in Windows Explorer. One of the options to access that directory is to copy and paste the following path into the Windows Explorer address bar.
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
This will display a list of encoded file. Each file contains the information of a specific jumplist. It is however not easy to link those files to a jumplist. The only viable way to do that is to open the items in that folder in a text editor and search for recent items that are in the jumplist currently.
An easier way is to delete all files in the directory which will remove all recent items in every jumplist. This process can be automated with the command
del %appdata%\microsoft\windows\recent\automaticdestinations\*
Experienced users can add this to the Windows Task Scheduler to run the command on every shutdown of the system. (via How To Clear Recent Jumplist Items at Windows 7 News)
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The recent items that are displayed can be a security and privacy risk.
If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
Merry Christmas
CEO Schmidt
Yes Womble. Everybody should just conform and stay on the safe middle route. Yep. Great world of Womble Dumble.
I’m sure the facist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao are happy for your support: If their subjects don’t want The State to know, they shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.
It seems you missed the joke friend.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=If+you+have+something+that+you+don%E2%80%99t+want+anyone+to+know%2C+maybe+you+shouldn%E2%80%99t+be+doing+it+in+the+first+place.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
That I did. Sorry.
But it’s reflex. I’m surrounded here by self righteous religious nuts and self righteous libtards. Gets on the nerves and sets it on edge.
Makes one wish for some zyklon b …
Disable Windows 7 jumplist is even better and easier:
Right click Taskbar
> Properties > Start Menu tab >
Uncheck both “Store and display recently opened items …”
> Apply > OK.
Or just check the option to clear jumplist items in CCleaner…
Thank you for the tip–how nice that I can actually remove those recent documents stuck in the list. :)
I’d be interested in an option to set number of recent items per each application individually. For instance, Microsoft Access will always show about ten recent items, which I need to ignore till I get to the top of the jump list where the pinned databases reside. Moving the pinned items would improve usability, IMHO.
super
Awesome.. thanks a lot
this is better:
http://www.ghacks.net/2009/12/16/clear-recent-items-in-windows-7-jumplists/