Win 10: Missing Most Used in Start Menu

Question

I'm using a Windows 10 machine recently updated from Windows 7. I'm missing the recent apps that normally show up in the start menu.

I've enabled them in settings (Settings > Personalisation > Start > Show most used apps), but no joy. Just this void of inky blackness where my Visual Studio and MATLAB used to live.

This is a work machine, but IT assures me they haven't intentionally broken it.

Is there a setting that I'm missing?

Answer 1

We eventually tracked down the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\Intellimenus

It was set to 1. When I reverted it to 0, there was much goodness and rejoicing.

Reference: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc960858.aspx

Answer 2

Well, you have three ways you might accomplish this.

Windows key (on your keyboard) + r at the same time > type in Regedit in your search and press enter > Navigate to

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]

On the Right Pane, if you see "NoRecentDocsMenu": right click, modify and set the value data to 0 (numerical 0, not O as in Oscar). Otherwise, you could also right click in a blank space, go to New > DWORD (32-bit) Value > name it exactly "NoRecentDocsMenu" (without quotes) and set the value to 0. Setting it to 1 enables the problem you're currently experiencing. If it's not there, you don't have to even create this value. But it might help if all else fails. These are just the things I was able to find that might cause your issue.

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Windows key + r at the same time > type in gpedit.msc > Navigate to

User Configuration\AdministrativeTemplates\Start Menu & Taskbar\Turn off user tracking

Make sure "Turn off user tracking" is set to "Not configured".

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Or, you might want the classic start menu back which you can get here. That is, assuming you prefer the classic start menu. It's highly configurable to your tastes. :)

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Edit Additional resources to consider http://www.howtogeek.com/236711/how-to-turn-off-recent-items-and-frequent-places-in-windows-10/ and http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3469-recent-items-frequent-places-turn-off.html

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http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/8/ http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/134908-how-get-recently-used-programs-show-up-start-menu-again.html https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc940407.aspx