Clear Recent Projects list in Visual Studio 2015

Question

Does anyone know how to clear the Recent Projects list on the start page of VS2015? Apparently VS2015 doesn't have an MRU file in the registry and I can't find any tutorials on how to clear the list for the 2015 version. Thanks!

Incurable

Answer 1

The MRU list just moved for VS 2015. It's still stored in the registry, it's just in a different place.

Open regedit and delete the items in:

Recent Projects
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\MRUItems\{a9c4a31f-f9cb-47a9-abc0-49ce82d0b3ac}\Items

Recent Files
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\MRUItems\{01235aad-8f1b-429f-9d02-61a0101ea275}\Items

Restart Visual Studio and that should do it.

Sauls

Thanks! This fixed a nasty bug for me. If you move a solution, but don't change the name, VS2015 spams the old solution item into the taskbar jumplist, with a broken icon. Clearing the recent items fixes this, since it comes from there. – Cowbird

Works for me. Also note that the first time VS2015 is loaded after deleting the registry items, and if you are using the dark color-scheme, VS has some weird white patches around the edges. Once you open a project, VS updates registry again, so just close and open VS and the white patches will be gone. – Eridanus

That did it. Thank you! – Mainland

Works perfectly. On a side note, why didn't Microsoft just use \MRUItems\Projects and MRUItems\Files instead of the guids? It's always been a mystery to my why Microsoft makes this needlessly convoluted. – Bahner

@Bahner the guids are com object IDs. – Sauls

Oh boy, how oldscool is that. They still keep settings in the registry :-\ – Galina

Answer 2

To remove a single project from Recent Projects list you can right click on the project and select remove. (The screenshot is in Italian, but it's clear.)

Gerge

Have to restart visual studio to get it removed from the file -> recent project list. – Leisha

+1 In my case, immediatly after removing the project from the list, the project disappeared from the sub-menu. This solution is perfect when you just have a couple of recent projects to delete and don't want to go deep into the registry. :) – Klipspringer

This worked once. Then right-clicked ceased to do anything. – Refugee

Where can I find that screen in Visual Studio 2015? – Ealasaid

Answer 3

The easiest solution you could ever found would be the Clear Recent VS Extension.

This extension saved me a lot of time when I moved all the projects from my HDD (D: partition) to my SSD (P: partition). I had to remove ~hundred of projects from Start Page Recent projects section and I did it in "one click".

Just press Ctrl+Shift+Q and then type Clear All.

Amadis

I cant get the CLEAR RECENT menu to come up? – Alon

@PrisonerZERO You need to type clear in the Quick Launch search bar. If the Clear Recent Menu doesn't come up, then restart the Visual Studio. If that doesn't help, then reinstall the Clear Recent extension. – Amadis