Comments for How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Comment from Sandy on 2009-11-05

2009-11-05T15:50:25Z

I have followed all the steps for both types of start menus including 'Clear Document History at Log Off', "Do not keep history of recently opened documents' and 'Turn off user tracking'. I have rebooted in order for the changes to take effect however the system seems to be returning to default settings and the changes I made are showing again as not configured. I am using XP Pro... any ideas?

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from Richard FDisk on 2009-05-06

2009-05-07T03:41:00Z

No GPedit in XP Home (so home users are supposed to know how to edit the registry; good one MS)
There are a couple of extra settings that I found on my XP Pro system that are helpful for keeping the system private:

> User Configuration
-> Administrative Templates
--> Start Menu & Task Bar section

- Clear Document History at Log off
(Clear history of recently opened documents on exit.)

- Do not keep history of recently opened documents
(Prevents the operating system and installed programs from creating and displaying shortcuts to recently opened documents.)

- Turn off user tracking
(Disables user tracking. This setting prevents the system from tracking the programs users run, the paths they navigate, and the documents they open...)

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from Daniel on 2009-04-08

2009-04-08T16:54:46Z

If you have the Classic Start Menu and you use gpedit.msc or the registry to turn of the My Documents folder, will it still be disabled if you then switch to Normal Start Menu? If it is still disabled, can you enabled it with the Customize > Advanced options for the Normal Start Menu? Or do you have to go back into the registry and change it back?

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from Donald Stevens on 2009-02-03

2009-02-03T16:51:15Z

I want to remove my Start Completely off of the computer, thanks Donald Stevens.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Michael H on 2008-12-11

2008-12-11T14:15:21Z

I was wondering if you could offer up a good explanation as to why your pc sometimes locks up when navigating to the documents folder from the start menu. Is windows trying to access a shortcut to a document that was either removed or maybe was on a network resource that's no longer available? Does that make any sense? Any input would be appreciated..

More often than not, it's due to the network resource issue, though not necessarily "unavailable". Windows automatically disconnects (or delays reconnecting) connections that are inactive. When you pop open the menu that might contain remote resources, it then has to go through the (sometimes time consuming) steps of reconnecting to locate the document.

- Leo
11-Dec-2008

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from John Gonzalez on 2008-10-14

2008-10-14T20:54:17Z

ihave the same question about erasing sites or pics from my startmenu documents page but i have win2k not xp and could not figure out how to do this......Thanx Leo........

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from tujula on 2008-08-29

2008-08-29T07:54:42Z

Big thanks! This helps me to prevent domestic troubles :D

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Comment from Jim on 2008-08-24

2008-08-25T03:36:43Z

Wow! Thanks a ton! I finally don't have that annoying "Documents" option on my classic start menu!

Thanks again!

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from deidei on 2008-07-03

2008-07-04T01:04:34Z

i appreciate this website.. i've learn many things in this website.. more power and thank you very much

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from NC White on 2008-06-29

2008-06-29T16:54:35Z

I use Windows XP Pro and every file, folder or drive I go to shows up in both RECENT and MY RECENT DOCUMENTS AS SHORTCuTS.
I do not like having all of these shortcuts in my computer. I have been going to SEARCH and typing RECENT and then I just delete them all. I do not know if I am doing the right thing. I would like to know how to stop these shortcuts from going into them. I prefer to make my own shortcuts. HELP!

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from My problem is the other way round! on 2008-04-07

2008-04-07T12:40:56Z

I'm using XP Pro, SP 2
When I go Start/Documents
I don't see any of my new Office 2007 files.

Obviously, they're in the relevant "Recent Files" list in the program itself, Word, Excel or Access.

But they're not in the Recent Dcouments Folder.

Any idea why not ???

Thanks

Eoin

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from Nigel on 2008-03-07

2008-03-07T20:40:02Z

Note that "Remove Documents menu from Start Menu" will remove not only recent documents, but the entire douments folder. To just remove recent documents from the classic start menu there is another option in the same section of group policy editor, "Do not keep history of recently opened documents". That way, you documents folder remains, but without the list of recently accessed documents.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Yuta on 2007-11-03

2007-11-03T16:24:20Z

You can let Winfilter help remove any item from the Start menu. For detail, you can check its website http://updownsoft.com. I am one of its users and think it is very helpful.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from kunal on 2007-10-27

2007-10-28T05:54:54Z

Thanks a million.........it helped me remove certain things i didnt want others 2 see......thnx

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Derrick4Real on 2007-09-28

2007-09-29T02:45:54Z

Wow...thanks so much. Who needs Tweak XP"...you can do it all right from there.

Much appreciated!!!

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Eric Bono on 2007-09-06

2007-09-06T19:09:56Z

While tweaking Win Xp (including the tweak shown above), I somehow must have corrupted the registry.

Now, when I try to access the group policy dialog box (run>gpedit.msc) I get an error which says "Snap-in failed to initialize"...
The group policy dialog box comes up with a big red X symbol and states this error: "Snap-in creation failed. The snap-in is not created, it may not be installed properly. Name: Group Policy Object Editor. CLSID: {8FCOB734-AOE1-11D1-A7D3-OOOOF87571E3}"

I have done this tweak on other computers, here in our small office, with no incident.

Any help on restoring this would be greatly appreciated.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Ken Crook on 2007-09-01

2007-09-02T06:52:04Z

I am running Windows XP Home edition, Classic Start Menu
But on my start menu I do not have the listing for "Documents" as shown in the first image.
How do I add this "Documents" listing on my Start menu?

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Sidney on 2007-08-31

2007-09-01T03:21:30Z

Thanks so much for direction to the Group Policy editor. Thanks to you, I cleared both "Documents" and "Log Off..." from my Start menu. This was after vainly spending several hours perusing my O'Reilly Windows XP Hacks book and searching The Elder Geek website.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

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Comment from zh00yi on 2007-08-23

2007-08-23T13:16:10Z

Thank you very much!!!
This is what I want..:)

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Salvador on 2007-08-22

2007-08-22T23:00:17Z

I did this once and Adobe Premiere stopped working. I dunno why, it just did. Looked for the error code and it said removing the documents and such was the cause.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Manu on 2007-08-22

2007-08-22T19:35:14Z

Messing around with gpedit.msc and regdt32 can screw up your system real bad. so be careful.

I'd rather use the TweakUI
tool from Microsoft that let's you explore a hundred other hidden features in WinXP, without you having to dig deeep into Windows.

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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Comment from Roland on 2007-08-22

2007-08-22T15:31:20Z

Reboot might be avoided by using
GPupdate /force

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A comment on: How do I remove the Documents item on my Start Menu?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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