Change Number of Items in \’My Recent Documents\’
Posted by David Kirk in Windows
If you want more or less items under the “My Recent Documents” section, this registry hack will show you how to do it.
1. Click Start
2. In the runbox type regedit and press OK
3. Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
4. Click Edit Menu
5. Select New -> DWORD
6. Name it MaxRecentDocs
7. Double click your new DWORD to change the value to ever how many documents you wish.
The default value is 15. Even if you set it really high, windows will still set other limits on how many documents are shown here.
If you are not familiar with editing the registry, don’t do it before seting a system restore point and backing up your system.
About David Kirk
David Kirk is one of the original founders of tech-recipes and is currently serving as editor-in-chief. Not only has he been crafting tutorials for over ten years, but in his other life he also enjoys taking care of critically ill patients as an ICU physician.
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The Conversation
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August 23, 2009 at 7:53 pm, Anonymous said:
So does this registry edit require a reboot? That would be nice to include in the info. I followed your intstructions and set it for 25 (which I don’t consider ‘really high’ (your definition for which also would have been helpful) and it stopped at 15.
March 28, 2010 at 3:03 pm, Anonymous said:
I have tried several registry hacks to accomplish this and none of them stick. What gives?
November 04, 2010 at 3:19 am, David1 said:
I tried this several times on Windows XP Pro – I can’t get more than 11 items, and increasing the number actually decreased the number of listed items to 7.
February 27, 2012 at 2:38 pm, Dana said:
yeah, this does not appear to work in windows 7