Batch File to clear run history silently

Both CCleaner and configuring by group policy still require a restart to take effect.

In fact, all the sources I can find are saying you must either restart the computer, kill and restart explorer, or click start --> shutdown --> cancel in order for the RunMRU changes to take effect.

The start --> shutdown solution does work, but I can't immediately see a way of doing this automatically.

If you use kill.exe in a batch file to kill off explorer.exe, then start it again, that does work but is by no means elegant.


regedit /s mruclear.reg
kill -f explorer.exe
start explorer.exe


See this KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/142298

Get kill.exe (and some other useful apps as well) from here: http://www.mattkruse.com/utilities/

Hi, many thanks to both of you for your suggestions.
dkumar82:   Group policy (user login )  works perfectly when i point it to the batch file which then silently runs the reg file.
i am more than happy with this solution, but just in case the process can be simplified even more, i have tried to add just the reg file in the login scripts and include the switch regedit.exe /s in the parameters but it doesn't run silently. is there a different parameter entry i could use?
many thanks again
rick

Add your registery settings on the same batch script, so that it would be invisible for end users.

Are u using regedit.exe /s ..try this also "REG ADD "

Hi,  yes i am using regedit.exe /s in my .bat file.
i have tried reg add [-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Explorer\RunMRU]  in my .bat file
to eliminate having a seperate .reg file, but it doesnt work, it only works if i run the .reg file from the .bat file.
i am more than happy with this, i will just hide the two files away somewhere and run the bat file from the gp logon process.  thanks again for all your help, the reason behind all this is that we run a large workgroup and have to add policies locally via gpedit and i dont want users to see the utils we use to stop them meddling.

Many thanks again for all your help. Running the batch file from gp which in turn ran the reg file worked a treat.