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Bob - 15 Sep 2007 22:35 GMT

In Power Point and my other Office 2007 applications I no longer see a list
of Recent Documents when I click on the Office Button. When I went to
advanced settings for options, it would not allow me to put in a number of
documents to appear in the list. The message said the feature had been
disabled by my administrator through Group Policy. I assume that I am the
administrator, since I am the only one using my computer and I have not
consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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PPTMagician - 16 Sep 2007 16:52 GMT

Group Policies are pushed down through your network. So, although you may
think you're the administrator of your PC, you're not.

Contact your Network Admiinistrator. I can't imagine the purpose in turning
this feature off.

Signature

Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

> In Power Point and my other Office 2007 applications I no longer see a list
> of Recent Documents when I click on the Office Button. When I went to
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
> figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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PPTMagician - 16 Sep 2007 16:58 GMT

BTW, if you work for the government, it may be because of the OMB mandated
Federal Desktop Core Configuration requirement. I don't remember this being
one of the settings, but there are a lot.

http://csrc.nist.gov/fdcc/

Signature

Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

> Group Policies are pushed down through your network. So, although you may
> think you're the administrator of your PC, you're not.
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> > consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
> > figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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Bob - 16 Sep 2007 17:27 GMT

I don't work for anybody. This is my home desktop PC. I do have a wireless
network that I set up (a couple of years ago) so I can move files to my
laptop, but I haven't done anything to it lately. So if I am not the
administrator, who is?

> Group Policies are pushed down through your network. So, although you may
> think you're the administrator of your PC, you're not.
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>> consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
>> figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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PPTMagician - 16 Sep 2007 18:26 GMT

Well, that s^&*ks.

In addition to what Steve told you, do you VPN to the company network using
your home PC? Might be how it happened.

Another thing to consider is highjacking of your PC. Do you use protection?
:-)

Signature

Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

> I don't work for anybody. This is my home desktop PC. I do have a wireless
> network that I set up (a couple of years ago) so I can move files to my
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> >> consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
> >> figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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Bob - 16 Sep 2007 18:41 GMT

I don't have a company. I don't work for anyone; no one works for me. I am
retired (a state that I highly recommend). The only thing I have changed
recently is to add a program called SpeedUpMyPC from Uniblue. It does clean
up some privacy files (but only when I run the program) and there is no
obvious relationship to MS Office. The only other thing I've done is remove
Computer Associates virus protection because it was doing all sorts of crazy
things. But I can't see how that would affect MS Office either. If someone
were going to hijack my PC, removing the list of Recent Documents is a
pretty strange thing to hijack!
One other strange thing: the Run command is no longer on my Start menu
(though I can get to a command prompt through accessories). Would it help
to re-install MS Office? I did look at what Steve suggested, but it seemed
a bit confusing. I'll take a second look. Thanks for the help.

Bob

> Well, that s^&*ks.
>
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
>> >> can't
>> >> figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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PPTMagician - 16 Sep 2007 23:12 GMT

Bob,

This should be of significant concern for you as Group Policies only go into
effect for PCs within the Domain they are set for.

Given the description of your environment (I am jealous), your PC should not
be a member of any domain (unless you set one up at home and you'd need a
server to do that). The only other suspect might be your ISP provider.

Unfortunately I'm not as well versed on the topic as I once was, so might I
suggest you post in the Windows XP? community forum under the topic of "Group
Policies appeared on independent home PC"

Any group policy "magically" appearing on an isolated home networked PC
should be cause for alarm.

Signature

Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

> I don't have a company. I don't work for anyone; no one works for me. I am
> retired (a state that I highly recommend). The only thing I have changed
[quoted text clipped - 51 lines]
> >> >> can't
> >> >> figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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Steve Rindsberg - 16 Sep 2007 16:53 GMT

I don't know how this might've happened but you may want to have a look here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307882

It explains how to edit policies. By adding the group policy editor snap in
you might be able to find the policy that's preventing you from changing the
number of recent docs.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

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garfield-n-odie [MVP] - 16 Sep 2007 20:36 GMT

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=284896 "'Most recently used' list
missing from File menu and 'Recently used file list' option unavailable
in Office XP and 2003". You don't use TweakUI? Some security suite
programs and anti-spyware programs can suppress the recently used file
list like TweakUI. Look for the registry key mentioned in KB284896,
check the value, and change it if necessary.

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PPTMagician - 16 Sep 2007 23:42 GMT

Nice find, Garfield and Odie :-) That's weird and would really tick me off.

Signature

Thanks,
Glenna Shaw
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.pptmagic.com

> See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=284896 "'Most recently used' list
> missing from File menu and 'Recently used file list' option unavailable
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> > consciously done anything to disable this feature. What's more, I can't
> > figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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Bob - 17 Sep 2007 01:10 GMT

I think I figured it out. The reference to TweakUI provided a clue. It
seems that when I installed SpeedUpMyPC software, they gave me a freebie
called System Tweaker. That seems to do something to MS Office, though
there was no obvious way to turn off the "feature" that disabled recently
used files. So I did a system restore to a date a few weeks back, and now
everything seems to work OK with lots of Recent Documents showing up in my
Office applications. Thanks for the help and suggestions.

> Nice find, Garfield and Odie :-) That's weird and would really tick me
> off.
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>> > can't
>> > figure out how to enable it once again. Any suggestions?

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