Should You Disable Recent Documents In MS Windows Or Not
January 17th, 2012 / No Comments » / by rajeshmago
Your Microsoft Windows OS based computer has been by default programmed to store recently opened files in a folder named: Recent Documents. This has been established to make accessing of documents which have been opened by you recently, easier. Most people find this "Recent Documents" feature quite helpful and use it often. Other people, especially those working on shared computers at public places or offices where it is shared, find the feature dangerous as it can disclose their privacy.
It is right that the "Recent Documents" folder is a double edged sword. It can be very beneficial giving the PC user quick access to recently opened documents while at the same time giving other individuals know some of the lastly accessed files. The other person need not know the location of any of the files (Recent Documents) opened by you recently, just clicking on the displayed filenames opens it displaying its full path.
If you are one of those people on a "private computer" – that you only use, and find the Recent Documents feature valuable, then keeping it as it is or enabled will not prove to be of any issues. But, if you do not use this feature, no matter if you are in a shared or private computer work environment, it is advisable for you to disable this.
Disabling the Recent Documents folder has been found to decrease the booting time of Microsoft Windows and privacy comes as an added reward. If you are using the Windows Vista version, it may help that you switch your Start menu to the Classic view first so you can follow the given instructions.
What is the Classic View? The Classic view for the Start menu is similar to those found in older versions of Windows and not the updated one of Microsoft Vista.
To switch to the Classic Start Menu view, Right Click on the START button found on the lower left hand side of your Windows screen.
In Windows Vista, this appears as an icon of the Microsoft Windows logo.
Click Properties, pick the Classic Windows view and click OK.
Now that you have changed it to Classic Windows view, you can follow the same procedure for other Windows version (other than Vista) when disabling the Recent Documents folder.
In order to disable the "Recent Documents" feature, follow these steps:
- Click START
- Click on the RUN tab Or if Run is not there Type ‘Regedit’ on the text bar that appears and press Enter.
- This will open a new window, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer.
- After you have done this, create a new DWORD value, this is essentially the same as creating a new folder.
- Create the DWORD value using the Key NoRecentDocsHistory and pick 1 for the value.
- You have just disabled the Recent Documents feature on your MS Windows computer.
- In order to make this take effect, restart your computer.
After the computer has booted, you will no longer have a record of your Recent Documents as in Windows registry "Recent Documents" setting is disabled.
Now that your Recent Documents setting have been deactivated, you may be able to notice a slight difference in the time it takes for your computer to boot; it will take slight less time to boot now. Also, you do not need to worry about people who might be prying around looking to get a scene of what you have been up to recently on your PC. The Recent Documents folder is just one of those things that you easily can do without any harm to your PC. In all cases, this can be seen as a preventive security action that helps you avoid any problems when it comes to your privacy.
