Published on July 28th, 2012 | by Pradeep Farkya

Windows 7 – Hide or Show recent programs (items) from start menu

Hello everyone,today i am going to show “how-to” hide or show the recent programs (or items) list that appears in the start menu.

Trojan or other virus programs send the information stored in the recent programs or items folder to a third party computer because this information is readily available to them.This may compromise your computer usage habbits and so in order to prevent this i will show you to how you can easily prevent this files from getting stored in the first place.

To start with,right click on taskbar and select properties.
Then, from the top dialog menu select Start Menu.

See the screencast below to get a more clear picture.

Now,there are two “privacy” options which you can see through the screencast below.You need to do the following to ensure that your computer usage habbits or recent programs and items are not stored in computer.This can be considered as a step towards increasing your privacy.

Deselect the option which says “Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu.
Deselect the option which says “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar.
Next Click apply and then OK.

After applying the recent programs and items will disappear from the start menu and taskbar and no further information about recently opened programs or items will stored.

Bonus Tip : If you want to quickly access the programs,i will give another solution to this,right click the program and select either pin to “Start menu” or Pin to “Taskbar”.This way you can access the program quickly and at the same time save a few clicks as well.

In order to show the recent programs or items list back,repeat the procedure as follows :

To start with,right click on taskbar and select properties
Then, from the top dialog menu select Start Menu.
Select the option which says “Store and display recently opened programs in the Start menu.
Select the option which says “Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and taskbar.
Next Click apply and then OK

SCREENCAST (video tutorial)