Hi Alison,

This isn't going to be easy. I can't think of a batch file method that would
work, but I'm not familiar enough with SMS to say whether that can do it.

For each user, the recent templates list is stored in the registry in the
key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Word\Recent Templates
(which mirrors the similar key under HKEY_USERS\<some security ID> for the
currently logged-in user).

Within that key, there are two series of values, Friendly1, Friendly2, etc.
and Template1, Template2, etc. The Friendly values contain the names that
appear in the task pane, and the corresponding Template values contain the
full paths to the templates.

If you simply zap a pair of values out of the middle of the list, all the
ones with higher numbers don't appear in the task pane. To delete any except
the last one, then, you have to rename all the values that follow it so
their numbers are decremented by 1. Since different users will have
different lists, you can't hard-code the set of values you want.

The scorched-earth method is to delete all the values under that key (but
leave the key itself). Word will rebuild the values as the user chooses
templates from the New Document dialog.

The most prudent strategy might be to ignore the link. Eventually it will go
away as users choose newer templates for their documents, and the new
templates push the old ones off the list.