Windows XP Professional: The Missing Manual

Start→My Recent Documents

You should see the My Recent Documents menu command in your Start menu by default. If you don’t, you can turn it on using the techniques described in the box below.

There’s one good reason for turning on this menu: It adds to your Start menu a submenu listing the last 15 documents you’ve opened. Using a list of recent documents can save you time when you want to reopen something you’ve worked on recently, but you’re not in the mood to burrow through folders to find its icon.

Note, however, that:

• Documents appear on the “recently used” list only if your applications are smart enough to update it. Most modern programs (including all Microsoft programs) perform this administrative task, but not all do.

• The Documents list doesn’t know when you’ve deleted a document or moved it to another folder or disk; it continues to list the file even after it’s gone. In that event, clicking the document’s listing produces only an error message.

NOSTALGIA CORNERRestoring the Traditional Folder Listings

Some of the commands that populated the Start menus of previous Windows versions no longer appear in the home version of Windows XP. That’s by design, of course: Microsoft is trying to make its new operating system look less overwhelming to the newcomer.

But if you miss some of the old folders—My Network Places and My Recent Documents, for example—it’s easy enough to put them back.

Right-click the Start menu. From the shortcut menu, choose Properties. Now the Taskbar and Start Menu ...