Windows 7 Lost my explorer taskbar icon recent function

[Heritz]

Ok, so you know that W7 by default includes an explorer shortcut in the taskbar to quickly access your libraries. If you right click the icon, it shows the most recent opened folders on explorer.exe.

A couple of days ago, I missclicked "unpin this program from taskbar". So went to C:\Windows and dragged explorer.exe to the taskbar again. It worked, however, I completely lost the history function of that particular icon.

Now, whenever I right click the explorer icon on my taskbar, I just see 3 elements "Windows Explorer", "Unpin this program from taskbar", "Close window". No history of recent folders, nothing else. Here is an screenshot: Link Removed due to 404 Error

Does anyone know a way to restore the history capability of my explorer icon on my taskbar?

Thanks!

 

[Trouble]

I may be mistaken, but I think you are actually talking about the Libraries shortcut on the taskbar
If that's correct, go to
C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows
and pin that to the taskbar. (right click and drag to taskbar and release)
Alternately you can type the word libraries into the search box, then in the results right click and choose open folder location will get you there faster.

 

[Heritz]

Trouble, thanks for posting.

I did exactly what you said but still, it isn't displaying the most recent items when I right click the shortcut on the taskbar. I opened a lot of folders later, restarted the computer, nothing...

 

[Trouble]

Don't you hate when that happens.
I did exactly what you said that you did (unpined it)
Then used the technique I described to re-pin it. Then I did it two more times just to make sure it worked correctly before posting and it worked everytime and the history stayed with the libraries folder. I attached a picture just to make sure we are both talking about the same thing.
The only other thing I can think of is right click on taskbar, choose properties, select the start menu tab at the top and make sure that both check boxes are checked inside the frame titled Privacy
"Store and display recently opended programs in the start menu"
"Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar"
Let us know if that helps.

EDIT: You will have to open and close some stuff to rebuild a history if they were unchecked.

 

[Heritz]

No brother, still nothing. I believe something is messed up, however, my OS is intact, I haven't hacked or edited any registry thing or stuff like that. But probably something is broken there.

I went to C:\Users\Danny\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent, and I can see all the recent stuff I opened, its just they are not being displayed on the taskbar icon.

If you happen to have any other idea I could try, even checking if my registry is ok, just let me know.

 

[Heritz]

Ok it is working now. Something was wrong, so this is what I did:

- Opened my command prompt (cmd) and ran the following two lines:

del /F /Q %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\*
del /F /Q %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations\*

- Then I went to: C:\Users\(USERNAME)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows , right clicked the "Recent Items" icon on the list and then selected "Clear Recent Items List".

I don't know exactly which one of the 2 did the trick, but it is working now.

Thanks Trouble.

 

[Trouble]

No....thank you. And congrats on resolving your issue. Now my only problem is, how am I going to remember that for next time. Hopefully the excellent search feature on the site will save me.
Thanks for the followup with the solution.