The feature has been available since for a long time and Microsoft has continued to implement it in Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 as well.

The information are stored in the Windows Registry under a UserAssist key which contains various information that are encrypted with the ROT-13 algorithm. The information stored under the UserAssist key in the Registry can become a privacy and security risk.

The program history is stored under the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\UserAssist

Several applications have been created to automatically decrypt the information and display them in a readable form to the user. One of those programs is UserassistView by Nirsoft.

The portable software program displays a list of item names, their index number, times they were started, modified time and ClassID.

It is possible to delete selected or all entries from the listing. The UserAssist key will however be automatically filled with new information from that point on so that it might be a better idea to schedule a regular cleaning job with a program like CCleaner.

The program history can also be saved as text, csv or html files for further inspection. UserAssistView is compatible with all Windows NT based operating systems including Windows 7. It can be downloaded directly from the Nirsoft homepage.

While many users do not worry about those information some prefer to manage which information get recorded and which do not.

Win Spy is a free software program that can monitor computer activity, or to be more precise to display what has been recorded by the Windows operating system in the past. It displays general operating system items like the recent documents but also Internet Explorer specific records extracted from the index.dat file.

Each of the eight different histories can be accessed by clicking on the tabs on top of the application. Files can be executed by double-clicking them. While the application is great to monitor computer activity it does not come with the means to erase the information.

A simple web search usually provides the tools to delete those information from the computer system.