Windows – Disable Recent Items in Jump Lists for Certain Programs

jumplistwindows 7

Is there any way to turn off the recent items in the jumplists of specific programs in Windows 7? This feature is useful on some programs (like my text editor) but there are other programs that I don't need everyone to see what I've opened recently (like my video player). I've searched around for a solution to this and I've found two "solutions":

  1. Turn off recent items in all jumplists (open the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties and uncheck the "Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar").
  2. Manually clear the recent items history.

Neither of these options seem very useful to me. #1 seems like the better solution if you really don't want someone to see your recent documents but then you lose that functionality for all programs instead of just the ones you want while #2 seems like it's something that's way to easy to forget about.

Best Answer

The Jump lists for each program are stored in "%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations" but they are in a binary format with an obscure name. e.g. "8fbb9843e86d54f4.automaticDestinations-ms" (which I will refer to as .adms from now on)

It is possible to discover which .adms belongs to which program with a little trial and error.

  • Open a video.

  • Put the AutomaticDestinations folder into Detail view and Sort by Date Modified.

    Only one or two .adms should be showing as modified in the past minute. One is probably Explorer's list of recent folders, the other should be your program.

  • Delete one of the .adms then try to open your program's jump list. (Programs in the Start menu will still show the jumplist arrow, you have to click to see if it opens or does nothing)

Once you have identified the correct .adms, undelete it and set the file properties to Read-only (this completely disables the jumplist)*

Alternatively, make a note of the filename and go in and delete it whenever you need to. Windows will recreate it with the same name.

* I tried changing other permissions, but it wants full write permissions or it won't work at all!?!