In Windows XP/2003 My recent documents list can be cleared as per the steps described below. For Vista/Windows 7 see the post How to delete Recent Items list in Vista or Windows7
- Right click the Start button and choose Properties
- Make sure that Start Menu tab is active.
- Click customize
- Click on Advanced tab
- Click on Clear list (see the snapshot below)
- Click OK.
In Vista and Windows 7 Recent Documents is renamed as Recent Items.
How to clear the recent items list from command line?
In Windows xp you can delete recent documents list from command line by running the below command.
del /Q "%userprofile%Recent*"
I have tested this on my windows XP sp2 box and it works fine. I need to check a vista or windows 7 machine to see if it this works there too..