Visual Studio 2008 - More control over Recent Projects list in Start Page

If you work with a lot of samples, the chances are quite likely that you will end up in a rather dirty list of Recent Projects List in Visual Studio. I'm personally quite nit-picky and I really hate it when I find something like this...

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Now... I don't know which of these Samples should I click on (since I have two in the list!). Anyway, there are multiple reasons why you would like to remove the junk entries from this list. One way is to open the Registry and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\ProjectMRUList. This list contains all the values you are looking for. Delete the values which you don't like and restart Visual Studio.

Another way, which I think is a smarter one is to download this ZIP and do the following...

1. Extract it anywhere in your machine.
2. Open Visual Studio, click on Tools -> External Tools...
3. Click on Add button and in the Title field, write "Clear Recently Used List"
4. In the Command Line, browse to the <SAVED__PATH>\ClearRecentItems.exe and click on OK.

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4. Now, you should have this tool listed on your Tools Menu in VS 2008.

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5. Here is the sample output...

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Feel free to download the code for this small utility...

Download 

Hope this helps, Wave
Rahul

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2008
    It would be better if Visual Studio had a built-in tool where developers could manage the Start page. For example, it should allow selective removal of projects by right-clicking on the project name.

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2008
    Nice tool - but it is Visual Studio 9 aka Visual Studio 2008 ;-) -- SvenC

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2008
    Kjopc, I agree with you, totally! If you feel strongly about it, feel free to give feedback at http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/Feedback SvenC, Thanks for pointing out :-) My bad, just corrected it. Cheers, Rahul

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2008
    .NETOpenCSV#Explorer-AVisualStudio2005add-inwhichinteractswithWindowsExplorerVisual...

  • Anonymous
    June 17, 2008
    .NET OpenCSV# Explorer - A Visual Studio 2005 add-in which interacts with Windows Explorer Visual Studio

  • Anonymous
    July 10, 2008
    Nice tool. Too bad it doesn't refresh the Recent Projects list after deletion.

  • Anonymous
    July 10, 2008
    Hi Songstre, Thanks for your comments! AFAIK, this can't be done from this tool simply because VS loads it from the registry while starting up. If I come to know of any API / Method which induces that call, I will update this tool. Rahul

  • Anonymous
    August 08, 2008
    Just don't run the tool on a fresh install of VS2008! It cores (object reference set to null...) because there is no list!

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2008
    Rahul, A great tool - any chance you can modify it to work with VB Express 2008? Doug.

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2008
    Doug Urquhart-Mitchell, Thanks. Stay tuned on www.dotnetscraps.com. I will post it once it is done. Can you mail me the registry key for Express edition. Instead of making it hardcoded, I will make it configurable. It should be something like... HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftVisualStudio9.0ProjectMRUList Thanks, Rahul Mail me at rahulso@microsoft.com, and I will get it done whenever I get an opportunity.

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2008
    "Feel free to download the code for this small utility..." Really, I do not know how to download the code...

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2008
    Sorry about that as well as the late response JM! I removed the code by mistake. Right now, I don't have access to the FTP. If it is urgent, mail me and I will give a copy through email. Thanks, Rahul

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2009
    Why don't you just post the code on Code Plex?

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2009
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 16, 2009
    Great utility-- much more elegant than the PowerShell script I'd been using.