Windows 7 Jump lists are brilliant… until they break .

My personal primary use of this tool includes pinning my lecture notes to products from the Office Suite, as well as folders with subject information for quick access.

Unfortunately, I’ve experienced a slight issue, in particular with the Office 2007 Word jump list. While I am now using Office 2010, I felt the problem and subsequent solution was worth publishing should anyone else, still using Office 2007, experience the same issue.

The problem in question; Occasionally I have found that the Jump Lists would be cleared for no apparent reason, and would not allow any documents to be pinned, nor update with any recent documents. This left me with a jumplist like the picture below;

From a technical perspective, the reason behind this is still unknown, however a solution does exist. After some Googling lead me to this post, with a subsequent solution to the problem. While the solution won’t restore the previously pinned items, it will allow you to pin new items, and restore the ‘Recent Items’ functionality.

1. Navigate (e.g. using Start > Run) to;
   • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\
   • %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations\
2. To prevent losing the existing jump lists for other applications, cut all the items out of that folder, and place them somewhere secure.
3. Add an item (e.g. any file) into the specific drop-list that was malfunctioning.
4. Restore the previously backed up items, remembering to not replace any duplicates. This will restore your other jump lists, while also fixing the broken one.

If that doesn’t fix the issue, you can also delete all of these files, in both folders, safely. However, you will lose any pinned items in any other applications on the taskbar.

You should now be able to pin new items to the jump list! Additionally, recent items should start appearing as you view new files and documents.