Start Menu Jump Lists explained

In the new Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 Start Menu some new features are implemented.

One of them is the Jump Menu:

When you open a document, Windows adds a ‘Recently used program’ to your Start Menu on the left side and adds a Document (on the right side) to this application. When clicking on an arrow next to the application, a menu is shown on the right, displaying all previously opened documents with that application.

In older versions of Windows, all recent files (or better: shortcuts to them) were stored in the Recent folder and you were unable to sort them on the application that was used to open the document. With this new method, the recently opened documents are sorted (and stored!) per application, making it easier to find what you are looking for.

This is a great feature, but when using mandatory profiles, these settings are lost when logging off.

This article will explain to you where these settings are stored and how to capture and restore them using the RES PowerFuse User Settings feature. This enables you to use a mandatory profile, while keeping the history of each users’ Start Menu. You need to be at RES PowerFuse 2010 SR3 to be able to use this feature.

Where are these settings stored?

In general, when you open a program, it is added to the  following registry key.

This key holds data on which application is used, how many times it was started, how many times it got focus and how long (in time) it had the focus.

In previous (< Windows Vista) operating systems, it was possible to disable the encryption of this data, but since Windows Vista, this is not possible anymore.

(on http://blog.didierstevens.com there is a tool, which lets you view and edit the information contained in this key)

The following registry keys make up the actual Start Menu and are better readable:

There are these values by default:

Favorites (REG_BINARY)
In this key the actual shortcuts that are Pinned to the Start Menu are captured.

FavoritesChanges (REG_DWORD)
This is a Windows System key for tracking the changes to the Pinned to Start Menu items.

FavoritesRemovedChanges (REG_DWORD)
This is a Windows System key for tracking the changes to the Pinned to Start Menu items.

FavoritesResolve (REG_BINARY)
In this key, reference is kept between the items in the Pinned to Start Menu and the items in the %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\Start Menu  folder in the users’ profile. 

FavoritesVersion (REG_DWORD)
This is a Windows System key for tracking the changes to the Pinned to Start Menu items.

ProgramsCache (REG_BINARY)
In this key all the programs that are started, are kept. 

ProgramsCacheSMP (REG_BINARY)
When pinning an application to the Start Menu, programs are also added to this key.

ProgramsCacheTBP (REG_BINARY)
When pinning an application to the TaskBand, programs are also added to this key. This feature is configurable from the RES PowerFuse Management Console, so we don’t need to capture this value.

In addition, for each application Jump List, a file will be created in the folder:

Effectively, the User Setting should look like this:

When you implement this User Setting in combination with a mandatory profile, the recently used programs will be available in the new session after logging off and on again.