<div>
Thanks Ardhendu.<br />
<br />
That registry key does not exist.
</div>


<div>
I took your suggestion an alternate route and just tried creating it and setting a value to 8 (for 8 recent documents to show) and when I go back into Word options, the field to enter the number of recent docs is greyed out (see attachment).<br />
<a href="https://filedb.experts-exchange.com/incoming/2009/01_w02/92181/wordScreenShot.gif" target="_blank" class="file-inline" title="Word options screen after adding the registry key with a value of 8 (40 KB)"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 512 512"><path d="M67.508 468.467c-58.005-58.013-58.016-151.92 0-209.943l225.011-225.04c44.643-44.645 117.279-44.645 161.92 0 44.743 44.749 44.753 117.186 0 161.944l-189.465 189.49c-31.41 31.413-82.518 31.412-113.926.001-31.479-31.482-31.49-82.453 0-113.944L311.51 110.491c4.687-4.687 12.286-4.687 16.972 0l16.967 16.971c4.685 4.686 4.685 12.283 0 16.969L184.983 304.917c-12.724 12.724-12.73 33.328 0 46.058 12.696 12.697 33.356 12.699 46.054-.001l189.465-189.489c25.987-25.989 25.994-68.06.001-94.056-25.931-25.934-68.119-25.932-94.049 0l-225.01 225.039c-39.249 39.252-39.258 102.795-.001 142.057 39.285 39.29 102.885 39.287 142.162-.028A739446.174 739446.174 0 0 1 439.497 238.49c4.686-4.687 12.282-4.684 16.969.004l16.967 16.971c4.685 4.686 4.689 12.279.004 16.965a755654.128 755654.128 0 0 0-195.881 195.996c-58.034 58.092-152.004 58.093-210.048.041z"/></svg>wordScreenShot.gif</a>
</div>


Word options screen after adding the registry key with a value of 8

wordScreenShot.gif

<div>
JOrzech:<br />
<br />
I will try that now and report back ... 
</div>


<div>
<b>2nd suggestion -</b> Can you try deleting the Normal.dot for Word and see if that helps? &nbsp;<br />
I know for a fact that this has fixed the same problem you are experiencing on older office versions, although I am not sure about 2007. Do remember to always make a backup, and restore that if it doesn't help.<br />
<b>3rd suggestion - </b>Also try checking all the locations of the documents? In the options settings &nbsp;in the where you have the 'recent documents', there is a tab File locations. Check the entry for 'Documents' if that points to a valid location? <br />
<br />
If all else fails, you can resort to <a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word/FX100649251033.aspx" rel="ugc nofollow">http://office.microsoft.co<wbr />m/en-gb/wo<wbr />rd/FX10064<wbr />9251033.as<wbr />px</a> &nbsp;which is Microsoft's office help area. <br />
- Ardhendu<br />
&nbsp;<br />

</div>


<div>
hi Scsinc,<br />
Creating the <b>NoRecentDocsHistory </b>will grey out the Recent Documents count. Please delete that DWORD from your registry. <br />

</div>


<div>
It looks like you don't have rights to write to your normal.
</div>


<div>
Hi Jorzech,<br />
I think what SCINC did was to modify his Registry and add the NoRecentDocsHistory DWORD in there. Thats why he was getting a grayed out screen. Thats why I asked him to remove it out. <br />
- Ardhendu. <br />

</div>


<div>
JOrzech:<br />
<br />
Yes, I am on a network - an SBS2003 domain to be exact. <br />
<br />
JOrzech and pari123:<br />
<br />
I removed the registry key as itI deleted normal.dotx and restarted Word. I then set the option for recent documents to 8 and closed Word. I then restarted Word and recent documents was reset to 0.<br />
<br />
Our My Docs folder is redirected and resides on our SBS server.
</div>


<div>
I know - but he said he couldn't find the registry key.....<br />

</div>


<div>
JOrzech:<br />
<br />
Yes, it wasn't there - I thought that by creating it and giving it a value of something other than 0 it would fix my problem - turns out it doesnt :-(
</div>


<div>
This problem occurs exactly the same way in Excel 2007 also.
</div>


<div>
Where does your normal file reside? &nbsp;If it's on the network... that may be an issue. &nbsp;
</div>


<div>
Normal.dotx resides on my local hard drive: C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxx\Application<wbr /> Data\Microsoft\Templates
</div>


<div>
For what its worth - Powerpoint 07 works fine; it displays recent documents and it holds the value I specify in the Powerpoint Options window. Go figure
</div>


<div>
Just a note -- there may be several instances of normal on your hard drive... you should search and remove them all.<br />

</div>


<div>
I removed all instances of the normal template. I ran the diagnostic as suggested and it found and repaired 1 issue on the last diagnostic test (the Setup diagnostic), but it didnt say what the issue was or what it did to correct it. After the diagnostic finished, I closed Word and restarted it and still no luck. I will try rebooting my PC to see if that makes a difference but I'm not hopeful a reboot will fix the issue. Why would Powerpoint behave differently than Word and Excel?
</div>


<div>
For Excel you would require <b>Max Display</b> DWORD value under the registry key:<br />
<b>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software<wbr />\Microsoft<wbr />\Office\12<wbr />.0\Excel\F<wbr />ile MRU </b> <br />

</div>


<div>
Thanks irudyk...that'll prolly fix it :) <br />
<br />
<br />
But wouldn't deleting the Word data key reset that?<br />

</div>


<div>
irudyk:<br />
<br />
Tried your suggestion: the Max Display value was set to 0. Changed it to 15, restarted Excel, and refreshed the view in regedit, and the registry key was changed back to 0.<br />
<br />
Did the same thing for Word and the same thing happened exactly as it did for Excel.<br />
<br />
I then deleted the Max Display registry key alltogether, refreshed regedit, and saw that on startup Excel and Word both recreated the key with a value of 0. Tried changing the value in Word/Excel Options and it would not update the Max Display registry key.
</div>


<div>
JOrzech: <br />
<br />
I thought that would certainly fix it too!!
</div>


<div>
Hmm, maybe since you are on a network, there may be a group policy setting for this Word option such that it is reset to 0 each time you open the application.<br />
The following link describes this in more detail<br />
<a href="http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc179081.aspx" rel="ugc">http://technet.microsoft.c<wbr />om/en-us/l<wbr />ibrary/cc1<wbr />79081.aspx<wbr /></a><br />
Maybe talk to your system administrator to see if the option could be removed from the group policy (if in fact that is what the cause is).<br />

</div>


<div>
Its certainly worth checking into ... though not sure why Powerpoint would function normally. Of course its the piece of software that I rarely use that works properly
</div>


<div>
Nope, no such software or macros are running on my machine
</div>


<div>
I'm still not clear on whether the WORD DATA key (NOT the max display key) was deleted from the registry.... can you please let me know ....<br />
<br />

</div>


<div>
Are you referring to removing this entire key:<br />
<br />
<b>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software<wbr />\Microsoft<wbr />\Office\12<wbr />.0\Word</b><br />
<br />
No, I have not deleted that ... I must have missed it in one of posts above. Will that mess with my installation or license info for Office?
</div>


<div>
Well, I backed up my registry and removed the entire Word key and it still didn't work.<br />

</div>


<div>
Just curious if you got the chance to find out whether there is a group policy being set?
</div>


<div>
The suggestions gave me good indicators as to how to narrow down the problem.
</div>


<div>
<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
Hi Experts,<br />
<br />
I have MS Office 2007 running on Windows XP SP3. I have all the latest Office updates as well as Windows updates. Whenever I change the Show Recent Documents setting to anything other than 0 and close and restart the application (Word or Excel for example) and check to see if my change was saved, it isnt - in fact, it keeps defaulting to 0 (zero). Is there something I'm missing?<br />
<br />
Thanks!!
</div>
</div>


Hi Experts,

I have MS Office 2007 running on Windows XP SP3. I have all the latest Office updates as well as Windows updates. Whenever I change the Show Recent Documents setting to anything other than 0 and close and restart the application (Word or Excel for example) and check to see if my change was saved, it isnt - in fact, it keeps defaulting to 0 (zero). Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks!!

Office 2007 Show Recent Documents Defaults to Zero

Microsoft Office is an integrated suite of applications that includes Outlook, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Visio and InfoPath, along with a number of tools to assist in making the individual components work together. Coding within and between the projects is done in Visual Basic for Applications, known as VBA.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Excel topics include formulas, formatting, VBA macros and user-defined functions, and everything else related to the spreadsheet user interface, including error messages.

Microsoft Excel

Microsoft Word is a commercial document editing program that is part of the Microsoft Office suite. It features numerous text-editing tools for creating richly formatted documents, along with tools for the use of macros in Word documents. Word's native file formats are denoted either by a .doc or .docx file extension. Plugins permitting the Windows versions of Word to read and write formats it does not natively support, such as the OpenDocument format (ODF) are available. Word can import and display images in common bitmap formats such as JPG and GIF. It can also be used to create and display simple line-art.