I just did a couple of little experiments and found this behavior:

- In Word 2003 (and presumably all earlier versions), if you have a
larger number of files on the MRU, reducing the setting and then
increasing it again permanently removes the bottom of the list. That
is, if you set the MRU from 9 to 2 and then put it back to 9, the File
menu continues to show only files 1 and 2 until you start opening more
files.

- In Word 2007, reducing the setting doesn't remove the bottom of the
MRU, it just hides it. Restoring the setting to the larger number
brings back the full list. The exception is that setting the MRU to
zero completely clears the list, and it isn't restored by increasing
the setting.

I can understand to some extent why users are bothered by having
deleted documents in the list -- if you click one by accident, you get
a message box (and in 2003 it contains a lot of "helpful" information
that _doesn't_ include "this file may have been deleted"!) that needs
an extra click to dismiss.

There is no equivalent of the Getting Started task pane, thank
goodness -- what a waste of electrons that was. In general, there's
been a big effort to reduce the redundancy in the UI, which is mostly
a good idea.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

On Sun, 28 May 2006 23:16:21 -0500, "Suzanne S. Barnhill"
wrote:

I hope that will be changed. For some reason users are really annoyed by
deleted files appearing on the MRU list. I guess you could reduce the number
of files on the list to a number that would eliminate the offending one.
Also, is there anything comparable to the Getting Started task pane that has
the same MRU list?