Remove Recent Projects, Solutions, Recent Files, Find and Replace Entries From Visual Studio.

This article will show how to remove Recent Projects, Solutions, Recent Files and Find and Replace entries from Visual Studio.

Introduction

After opening Visual Studio, the left hand side (of the Start Page) will have the projects listed that you have worked on recently as shortcut links.

Also, from the menu "File" \ "Recent Files" or "Recent Projects and Solutions" will have your recent web pages and solutions listed.

If you do "Crtl + F" or "Crtl + H" then that shows the recent searches and replaced entries. So, how can we remove these entries?

Getting Started

There are a couple of ways to do the clean up from Visual Studio.

#. From VS 2010 and VS 2012, now it's easy to remove the unwanted referenced project files.

You just need to right-click on any of the list and click on "Remove From List". That's it, the project is removed from the list.

For other versions, refer to the following:

1. By changing the values of the "Environment" \ "General" \ "Recent Files" settings from the "Tools" \ "Options" menu .

The default value is "one" for both options. But this will not actually remove the recent files from Visual Studio.

These settings will just hide the other entries and show only the latest one.

2. The other way is by editing the registry entries to clear the values; this will permanently delete the selected entries.

Open the registry from the Run window by typing "regedit". Or, "Start" \ "All Programs" \ "Microsoft Visual Studio 2010" \ "Remote Registry Editor".

Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\".

This will list various Visual Studio versions available on your system. Select the version you are using from the followiong list:

10.0 For Visual Studio 2010.

9.0 For Visual Studio 2008.

8.0 For Visual Studio 2005. Etc.

i. Remove Recent Projects.

Navigate to node "ProjectMRUList"; this will list the recent projects on the right side of the window panel. Select all files and delete the entries.

ii. Remove Recent Files.

Navigate to node "FileMRUList", this will list the recent web files and solutions on the right side of the window panel. Select all files and delete the entries.

iii. Remove Find and Replace texts.

Navigate to node "Find", this will list the recent Find and Replace entries on the right side of the window panel.

Here, select entries from Find to Find9 and Replace to Replace0 only and delete.

Other entries are settings, so be careful while deleting.

Conclusion

Hope this article helps you. Post your comments.

6 Comments

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Sr Karthiga10y ago
Good explanation
Sr Karthiga10y ago
Nice one
Suthish Nair13y agoedited
It was not showing me also, but available under Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Start" \ "All Programs" \ "Microsoft Visual Studio 2008" \ "Visual Studio Remote Tools" \ "Remote Registry Editor"
Sam Hobbs13y ago
I find "ProjectMRUList" right where it is said to be. What I cannot find is "Remote Registry Editor" in the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 node.
Hassan Humayun15y ago
there isnt any directory named ProjectMRU list , i m using windows 7.
- Suthish Nair15y ago
  do a search in registry for that keyword...