Rahul Soni's blog

It would be better if Visual Studio had a built-in tool where developers could manage the Start page. For example, it should allow selective removal of projects by right-clicking on the project name.

Nice tool - but it is Visual Studio 9 aka Visual Studio 2008 ;-)

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SvenC

.NETOpenCSV#Explorer-AVisualStudio2005add-inwhichinteractswithWindowsExplorerVisual...

.NET OpenCSV# Explorer - A Visual Studio 2005 add-in which interacts with Windows Explorer Visual Studio

Nice tool. Too bad it doesn't refresh the Recent Projects list after deletion.

Just don't run the tool on a fresh install of VS2008! It cores (object reference set to null...) because there is no list!

Rahul,

A great tool - any chance you can modify it to work with VB Express 2008?

Doug.

"Feel free to download the code for this small utility..."

Really, I do not know how to download the code...

Why don't you just post the code on Code Plex?

FYI: Used the ClearRecentList tool on VS 2008 Web Developer Express and got this exception:

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

  at ClearRecentItems.frmClearList.LoadItems()

  at ClearRecentItems.frmClearList.frmClearList_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)

  at System.EventHandler.Invoke(Object sender, EventArgs e)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

  at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

----------------

I'm clearing the registry list to clear the recently used:  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VWDExpress\9.0\ProjectMRUList]

Here's source code for a similar, simplified (less elegant, but perfectly functional) utility that will clear the entire recent projects list with one button click.  To use this source code, in Visual Studio, create a new Windows Form project (VB), rename the form to "MainForm", adjust the form size and caption as you like, add a single button and name it "ClearBtn".  Add the line "Imports Microsoft.Win32" to the top of your form's code module (needed for registry access functions).  Create an event handler for the button's CLICK event, and update the click event handler's code to match what is shown below.  

If you want to convert this to work with a different MS Visual Studio version or related Microsoft IDE, I would recommend doing a little research to find the registry subkey that said IDE uses and replace the registry string reference in the source code below with the corrected subkey (regKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\ProjectMRUList", True))

Like the earlier tool, this can be added as an external tool into Visual Studio, but it doesn't refresh the list that's already displayed, which is only requeried by Visual Studio when it's relaunched.  Maybe there's a way to do that.. you could also modify this application to clear the recent project list and then have it launch Visual Studio for you as a sort of "pre-loader" instead of using it as a tool from within Visual Studio, if you are really fastidious about keeping that list cleared.  I like to clear this list so I can make tutorial videos and not have a cluttered screen that references projects unrelated to the tutorial.

Entire source code:

'--FORM SOURCE BEGINS-------------------------------

Imports Microsoft.Win32

Public Class MainForm

   Private Sub ClearBtn_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles ClearBtn.Click

       Dim regKey As RegistryKey

       Dim str As String(), i As Integer, removed As Integer

       removed = 0

       Try

           regKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\ProjectMRUList", True)

           str = regKey.GetValueNames()

           If str.GetLength(0) > 0 Then

               For i = 0 To str.GetUpperBound(0)

                   If str.GetValue(i).ToString().Contains("File") Then

                       regKey.DeleteValue(str.GetValue(i).ToString())

                       removed = removed + 1

                   End If

               Next

           End If

           regKey.Close()

       Catch ex As Exception

           ' Most likely cause of an exception is that the registry key/subkey specified does not exist

           MessageBox.Show(ex.Message())

       End Try

       If removed > 0 Then

           MessageBox.Show("Changes will be visible the next time Visual Studio 2008 is launched.", _

                           "Info", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information)

       Else

           MessageBox.Show("Nothing to do.", "Info", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information)

       End If

       Application.Exit()

   End Sub

End Class

'--FORM SOURCE ENDS---------------------------------