Windows: stop "Recent Documents"

Launch Registry Edit (regedit) from the Start menu's Run dialog and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Look in the right-hand pane for a value named NoRecentDocsHistory. If you don't find it, right-click in the right-hand pane and choose New | DWORD Value. Name the newly created value NoRecentDocsHistory. Double-click the value and set its data to 1. In the exact same way create DWORD values named ClearRecentDocsOnExit and NoRecentDocsMenu and set the data of each to 1. Reboot to complete the process.