Windows – Excel ‘recently used list’ not showing on start menu, but working within excel

microsoft excelwindows 7

In windows 7 when you pin Excel 2007 to the start menu, it usually has a small arrow which shows your recently opened documents. Mine only shows permanently pinned documents. It used to work until I tried Office 2010 and then uninstalled it. If I open Excel and click on the file menu, I can see all the recently opened documents so they are being recorded somewhere…

Any idea on how to restore it so I can view them on the start menu – Which I always used before?

Best Answer

According to this article, the issue may happen because one of the Jump Lists’ recent items in automaticDestinations hidden system folder is corrupted.

Delete or clear Jumplist recent items in Windows 7 that is corrupted in AutomaticDestinations-hidden system folder is the likely solution.. To resolve and fix the issue, follow these steps:

  1. Open Windows Explorer.
  2. Type or copy and paste the following into the address bar: %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
  3. Identify files that are comparatively larger in size than the rest of the file, such as files that have file size of 1 MB or more. Delete the abnormal file. Tip: If you does not want to retain the Jump Lists’ recent items history on all applications, just delete all the automaticDestinations-ms files in the folder.
  4. The recent items functionality on Jump Lists will be restored.

The recent items on the Jump Lists will be re-added as the program is been used. However, do note that the solution does not restore the previously pinned items. So user will have to pin new items again.

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