MS Office 2010. Recent documents do not show

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When I go to Recent Documents in word or Excel 2010 none of the recent documents of files accessed show. Can someone please help me.

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This suggestion might seem obvious, but have you checked the Options to make sure “Show this number of recent documents” is set to a number greater than 0?

File tab, Options, Advanced, Display (about halfway down the screen). Set the number of documents to display (the maximum is 50, at least in Word), then click “OK” to save your settings.

Any luck? If not, let us know and we’ll try to figure out what’s going on. (I’m assuming you’re referring to documents that you have saved, as opposed to documents you closed without saving.)

Jan

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Hi,

Sorry if this is a duplicate response but I am new to this.

“Show this number of recent documents” is grayed out and can not be altered.

Thanks and Regards

Selwyn

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When a setting is grayed out that often means an administrator has set a policy that users can not change.

Joe

--Joe

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Hi,

It is my PC and I am the administrator. If this is the case how would I alter the setting?

Thanks

Selwyn

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What operating system are you running?

If Office 2010 was an upgrade, from which prior Office version?

Was Office installed from an account with admin privileges?

You need to change registry settings under HKCUsoftwarepoliciesmicrosoftOffice14.0officeappname for each desktop application. You want to look for a setting for maximum recent files – ma be called maxrecentfiles.

Remember that these policies are per user. So, if you have more than one user defined on the PC these changes must be made for each.

Joe

--Joe

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I have same problem; Had Office 2010 plus Excel 2003 installed under Windows 7; found that I should have installed Office 2010 first and then Excel 2003. I corrected that.

Still no luck! So I completely removed Excel 2003, no luck. The registry location mentioned does not show ….14officeappname, only ….system certificates and windows . Under softwaremicrosoftoffice it still shows ….Office11

Should I completely delete (or rename to ….office11old?)
Any advice appreciated, Maarten

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Many security utilities or disk cleaning utilities, such as CCleaner, eliminate (or delete) the recently-used-file data. And if there is no data, the recently used file option in Word or Excel would be grayed out. Could this be a factor?

If you save, and then close a file, and immediately look at recently used files, is anything there? If not, I would suspect some type of security setting, either in Office or Windows, is causing this. Unfortunately my own setup is not so new and I can’t give any further suggestions.

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I am running XP SP3.
Office 2010 was upgraded from office 2007.
My computer is only set fro administrative privileges as I am the sole use who is the administrator as setup wee it was bought.

Please see the attachment to show what was added to the registry.

Excel is the same addition as word.

This has made no difference.

Thanks

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You might want to check for a rename on the File MRU. In one admin template download file, I found this info:

Set number of places in the Recent Places list

HKEY_CURRENT_USERsoftwarepoliciesmicrosoftoffice14.0wordplace mru

This policy setting allows you to set the number of entries in the Recent Places list in the Recent Tab.

If you enable this policy setting, you may specify the number of entries in the Recent Places list between 0 and 50. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, a default of 14 items will be shown.

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HI,
Many thanks. I do not have a problem in the recent tab. When I set the number of documents in the recent tab that showed fine and I can set numbers in the box but the problem is that no recent documents show. Recent places do.

In options under. advanced, display. “show this number of recent documents” is grayed out.

Per this thread my problem might be solved if I could access / alter the box under options, advanced.

Regards

Selwyn

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If I’m understanding you correctly, what does display is the “Quickly access this number of recent documents” list that appears at the left side of the File drop-down. Also, you do get a listing of “Recent Places” (at the right side of the screen). What does not display is the “Recent Documents” list that normally appears when you click the “Recent” fly-out menu in the drop-down. (I think, but am not certain, that that is what Jefferson was referring to as the “Recent tab.”) Is that correct?

I wonder if there is some odd setting under Trusted Documents or Trusted Locations (in the Trust Center) that could be disabling the MRU function.

Jan

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Hi Jan,
Thanks once again.
Your understanding of the problem is absolutely correct.
I just added C:My Documents to trusted locations but to no avail.

Situation is unchanged.

Many Thanks

Selwyn Mendelsohn

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Hi,

I seem to have solved the problem. Did a Google search and altered the registry:

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERmicrosoftwindowscurrentversionpoliciesexplorer

and changed the key:
NoRecentDocsHistory
from1 to 0

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Just to be contrary, I found my NoRecentDocs setting under

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer

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Hi,

I seem to have solved the problem. Did a Google search and altered the registry:

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERmicrosoftwindowscurrentversionpoliciesexplorer

and changed the key:
NoRecentDocsHistory
from1 to 0

I appreciate this tip as I had the same problem. However the registry key is HKEY_CURRENT_USERsoftwaremicrosoftwindowscurrentversionpoliciesexplorer (note the “software” addition)

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Glad you resolved the problem.

Tracing the issue to a setting under Windows…Explorer reflects great detective work! That’s not obvious in the least.

Thanks for posting back. The solution could be helpful to others.

Jan

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When I go to Recent Documents in word or Excel 2010 none of the recent documents of files accessed show. Can someone please help me.

Try here for a solution. Fixed it for me.
http://www.technipages.com/ms-office-recent-list-your-administrator-has-turned-off-the-recent-documents-list

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