Office 2003 Files Do Not Appear on Vista’s "Recent Items" List
I have not completely tracked down the culprit here, but if I have seen this behavior, chances are somebody else has (or will) too. When I double-click on an old .doc or .xls file and open it in Office 2007, a shortcut to the file does not appear in Vista’s “recent items” list off of the start menu. New (or converted) .docx or .xlsx files opened in a similar way do appear in the list.
Further investigation revealed that the shortcuts to the .doc and .xls files were indeed being added to the %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder… they just weren’t being displayed in the UI. Strange.
The machine has Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Professional, but I have another machine with (what I think is) the exact same configuration that does not exhibit this behavior.
Having not found a solution, I’ve settled for a workaround; convert old Office 2003 files to 2007’s open XML file formats. There are a host of other reasons to do this anyway, so it’s not a difficult pill to swallow.
Does Vista Sleepwalk?
I’ve been running Vista on two Dells pretty much since its retail release. Overall, I have been very (very) pleased with the upgrade. Power management is much improved and the quick wake-time from a hybrid sleep has allowed me to be a bit more aggressive about how quickly I let my machine go to sleep. Sleep mode keeps the power bills down and the rooms a bit cooler in the summer.
I’ve noticed that the machines wake up from time to time and I haven’t been able to put my finger on the cause. It’s never been a big deal, just a bit annoying. Maybe it’s a USB device not behaving properly. Maybe something to do with updates (can Vista do that?) Well, this morning I heard my rig wake “sleepwalking” and decided that I should probably figure out what was causing it. (It’s more than a bit creepy to have your machine wake up in a dark room with no corporeal being at the keyboard).
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