Thread: RepLace Vista's CLunky Recent Items List

IN PRINCIPLE Windows Vista's Recent Items list is a good idea, but Microsoft executed the feature so badly that it's not terribly useful. The list has been hanging around in the Start menu since Windows 95, and Microsoft still hasn't fixed it.

Sure, having an automatically updated, conveniently located list of files that you have recently used is great. But you'll probably want to revisit certain file types time and again, and others never. For instance, I'm very likely to return to a recently opened . doc file, and far less likely to revisit a .jpg file. Yet ifI've just been editing some photos, those files will bump all of my recent Word files right off the Recent Items list, leaving me with a bunch of quick shortcuts to files that I have no wish to reopen anytime soon.



A professional photographer, on the other hand, might very well have that situation reversed, with a distinct and continuing preference for graphics files over text files. Fortunately, introducing a few simple user-defined parameters will solve the disappearing-files problem for everyone.

Instead of depending on (and enduring) Microsoft's half-baked Recent Items list, why not give Flexigensoft's free ActualDoc try? This power¬ful tool provides separate recent lists for documents, pictures, and other file types in either its full window or its system-tray pop-up menu. It can also password-protect the lists it maintains, to preserve your privacy. The €20 Pro version adds user-defined categories and a number of other tools.