Clearing XP Past Items (Useful)

[Teddy]

Use this useful little VB Script to clear all those unwanted past items that tend to stay in the 'Right Click Start Menu > Properties > Taskbar Tab > Customize area.

Used it myself and it's safe.

 

[Teddy]

In case my poor attempt at describing what it clears wasn't, er, clear, see the attached:

 

[Hipster Doofus]

Good little find Teddy.

 

[NetRyder]

No reboot or logoff needed?

 

[lechtard]

This dose'nt work - anyone figure it out ??

 

[Teddy]

Worked for me. Not reboot required.

lechtard...you're using XP i presume? Not sure why it wouldnt work if you are.

This is the code, perhaps you could follow it and do it manually:

'xp_pastitems.vbs - Remove Past Items from the System Tray
'Based on fixes by Doug Knox and Kelly Theriot.
'© Doug Knox and Kelly Theriot - 8/23/2003

Message = "To work correctly, the script will close" & vbCR
Message = Message & "and restart the Windows Explorer shell." & vbCR
Message = Message & "This will not harm your system." & vbCR & vbCR
Message = Message & "Continue?"

X = MsgBox(Message, vbYesNo, "Notice")

If X = 6 Then

On Error Resume Next

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

WshShell.RegDelete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify\IconStreams"
WshShell.RegDelete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify\PastIconStreams"

Set WshShell = Nothing

On Error GoTo 0

For Each Process in GetObject("winmgmts:"). _
ExecQuery ("select * from Win32_Process where name='explorer.exe'")
Process.terminate(0)
Next

MsgBox "Finished." & vbcr & vbcr & "© Doug Knox and Kelly Theriot", 4096, "Done"

Else

MsgBox "No changes were made to your system." & vbcr & vbcr & "© Doug Knox and Kelly Theriot", 4096, "User Cancelled"

End If

 

[NetRyder]

Ah, I see it restarts the Explorer shell in order to prevent a full reboot. I usually used to delete the keys and restart for the changes to take effect. Closing and re-opening Explorer from Task Manager should do the trick.

@letchard:
Try going through it manually. Open Regedit and navigate to:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify\
Then delete the two values in the right-side pane: "IconStreams" "PastIconStreams"
Close Regedit, open up Task Manager, select explorer.exe and kill the task, then click File>New Task and type explorer.

 

[lechtard]

Originally posted by NetRyder
@letchard:
Try going through it manually. Open Regedit and navigate to:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify\
Then delete the two values in the right-side pane: "IconStreams" "PastIconStreams"
Close Regedit, open up Task Manager, select explorer.exe and kill the task, then click File>New Task and type explorer.

This is what I did - basiclly,, I did it and rebooted .. I'll try it the way you mentioned and see what happens .. Thanx for the info ..

 

[Leevoy]

worked fine for me, thanks for script!