Recent Documents Be Gone! (aka: quickly cleaning recent documents menu)
Throughout my day I open hundreds of files, of dozens of different types, and until maybe eight (8) months or so I use to really hate the feature in windows called "Recent Docs" or "Documents" that get's placed within the "Start" menu of windows.
I really did not like that menu for two reasons: First, it was just more clutter and junk I had to wade through to get to the places I wanted to go, and secondly, because it was usually so filled with stuff I didn't need (and probably wouldn't for hours) it was rather worthless to me.
I recently setup a new server in my office and once again came face-to-face with this menu feature I really did not like - except this time as I was setting up the new server I found myself quickly using it as I needed one or two specific files/apps that were stored in there.
That got me thinking, "Man, there has to be a way I can find a use for this in my day-to-day work!". What I'd come to realize is that it was not the feature itself that I did not like, it was that 99% of the time it had files/apps listed in it I simply did not need at the time or anytime in the near future - and thus was useless to me.
That got me thinking, "Ok, what would it take for me to have this menu feature actually be helpful?" Well the answer to that was simple, "Allow me to very quickly clean out (remove) everything stored in the menu!"
I tried right-clicking on the menu: Nothing!
I tried deleting things by hand: To Much Work!
All along I knew I could empty it by going to:
Start -> Settings -> Toolbar & System Menu -> Advanced -> Clear
But did I really want to have to click five (5) times just to clear a stupid menu? Heck No!
That got me thinking, "Ok, so how in the world can I clean this without having to click 5 times!"
The answer to that took me a little while to figure out.
Eventually my days of Windows 1.x came back to me and I remember "Oh, DOS still exists!" 
So that sent me on a massive search engine hunt to figure out what others had written about to solve this "problem" I wanted to solve.
Alas, after about 7 minutes of searching (which is 4 minutes more then I will normally spend searching for something) I figured "screw it, I'll figure it out myself... I gotta be able to remember enough DOS commands to do this!"
Thankfully, it only took me about 8 more minutes, and I had it figured out. Well, almost figure out!
Here is what I initially came up with:
As I mentioned above I almost got it working with the above code!
You see, when I ran the above code the stupid DOS command kept asking me to confirm the action.
I must say, this stumped me for a wee-bit of time!
Then I had a most ingenious idea come to mind!
The "quiet" command... oh-yeah.. that's taking some of you back a lot of years... I can feel it now baby!!
So, let's try this on for size:
Ah, sweet satisfaction!
(reader tip: replace "Administrator" with your own Windows usersname)
So, now I have this cool little DOS command that I can run to clean out my "Recent Documents" list.
But wait a freaking minute... do I really want to have to open a DOS Command to run this every time I want to do this? No, of course not!
So, back to the drawing board I go.
After a few seconds of pondering, yet another brilliant idea comes to my most brilliant and ingenious mind: "Hey stupid, write a batch (.bat) file!"
Ahhhhh, sweet perfection!
Ok, not exactly sweet "perfection"... but man, I was getting really, really close!
There was only "one last thing" I told myself that this really needed!
What is that you ask? "Why, a shortcut in the Start menu for quick access!"
So, after I had saved my .bat file in my root C: directory/folder, I simply right-mouse-clicked on the .bat file and selected "Create Shortcut" - and a simple matter of dragging the shortcut link to my Start Menu!
Wow, now I can very quickly press that hot and dandy new shortcut (I assigned a snappy icon to it: right-mouse-click -> properties - Change Icon) and it cleans out my Recent Documents folder!
Why was all this worth it you ask, if I hate this feature so much?
Well the answer to that is maybe not so complicated, but let's just say that normally I open a number of files/apps and will use them for an hour or so, then move onto a whole other set of files/apps for awhile, and so-forth throughout the day.
Thus, for the duration of time that I am using a specific set of files/apps, they are very handy and quick to get too... but, when I need to get them "out of the day", it's just the click of a button (ok, technically two clicks: Start->Icon but hey, that's a heck of a lot better then 5-clicks it normally takes!!) and everything I want gone... is gone!
Weehooo!!!
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Author: abelajohnb
Location: California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Blog Entries: 154 (archive)
Blog Comments: 2
raised in a private christian school until his senior year, mr. abela has been around the christian faith nearly his entire life. at the age of twenty-two mr. abela was called to the ministry as a lay-minister where he served as a youth minister for nearly seven years and then...
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Yeah, nice and handy for those times when the boss comes walking by and decides to use your computer too, eh John 
