Comments on: Clear Recent Documents History in a Single Click in Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7

By: mike

mike — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 05:12:06 +0000

i appreciate it…very helpful thanks !!!!!

By: Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:03:06 +0000

@markinboone: Using CCleaner is a good idea in this case. (REF: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/add-ccleaner-button-to-internet-explorer-toolbar/) You can add “CCleaner.exe /auto” in a script/batch file.

By: markinboone

markinboone — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 19:51:04 +0000

I have found something in Windows 7 that is annoying regarding history files. I run a file search (I hate the new file search!) for “.mp4″ Of course, this doesn’t just find files that have “.mp4″ – Windows 7 doesn’t think I really meant to look for the period, so anything with “mp4″ anywhere shows up. (Enough of the unrelated griping.) What I get is a list of items that includes file names like “trailer.mp4″ but there is no other information showing in the Detail file view: no date, no size, no folder; and right-clicking doesn’t give me any functionality but Open, Add to Favs, Copy, Delete, Properties.
- Properties shows it’s an “internet shortcut” and points to the location the file was downloaded (saved) to.
- Delete doesn’t work, nor any other method to delete the “file.” A msg says “Are you sure you want to delete History Item blahblah?” but clicking yes does nothing.
- These all have a globe icon.
- I can copy the object, paste it into another folder, and it becomes an actual shortcut – with all the functionality! I can delete what I copied.

These are apparently recent documents/internet history shortcuts of files I downloaded, which is disconcerting since I use FireFox and not IE. So the Operating System is tracking downloads on top of the browser doing it. Clearing (Firefox) Browser Internet History doesn’t get rid of them.

And the script you provide doesn’t clear these buggers either. What deletes them is: Control Panel > Internet > General > Browsing History > Delete… (everything checked but Preserve Favorites website Data, Form Data, and Passwords)

I found this shortcut on line: Create a New Shortcut, and enter for Type the Location of the Item: RunDll32.exe InetCpl.cpl,ClearMyTracksByProcess 4351

Is there a way to execute this in your script? The number at the end can be modified to specify exactly what to delete (http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistaprograms/thread/a3a91631-f471-495c-af32-6ec421d0e5d9/). As it stands I’m running both the script and the shortcut to wipe out the past.

By: Daron Johnson

Daron Johnson — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:49:15 +0000

Thank you, works great

By: Greg Robert

Greg Robert — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:25:23 +0000

Wow, such quick help!

Have modified my version and tested and all is well.

Thanks Ramesh!

- Greg

By: Ramesh Srinivasan

Ramesh Srinivasan — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 03:14:51 +0000

@Greg: Updated the script in article.

By: Greg Robert

Greg Robert — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:34:35 +0000

Ramesh,

Oh, I see the bug. sRD is the pathname to the recent files folder. However, since the folder always exists, the test is always true, even if the folder is empty. So it always tries to delete the links and, when there ARE NO links, it gets an error.

Is there a way to suppress the error and continue execution?

- Greg