They are saved in the Registry under the appropriate application's Recent or
MRU hives.

Note: I can find very little pattern in how these MRU lists are generated or
saved in the Registry from App to App in Office

In Window XP Pro...............

Excel 2003 keeps a list in the registry of only the files that are on the
MRU list when Excel is closed.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\E xcel\Recent Files

Excel 2007 keeps a list in registry of ALL the files you have ever opened
whether or not they currently appear on the MRU list.............they are
numbered Item1 to Itemxxx with 1 to x being those currently on the list.

Kind of a wasteful use of registry space IMO

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\E xcel\File MRU

You would have to export the appropriate Keys as *.reg files then merge into
the Registry of your new computer.

Assuming the OS would be the same.

I think it may be more trouble than it is worth.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:41:02 -0800, vabki
wrote:

I'm getting a new computer. Is there a way to save the "recent files" list
that is available in each of my Office programs? (Does anyone know where
Office saves these shortcuts?)