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I've had steam installed for a long time now and have had no problems.

Recently it keeps forgetting my recently played games and only displays a single game (Age of Empires Online) there, where normally it would show several.

I'm talking about the list of games at the top of the menu when you click the notification icon, and the jump list you get when pinning steam to the start menu.

I've played many other games more recently than AoEO. I always shut down steam correctly and haven't noticed anything else at all unusual.

What could be causing this?

Is there some kind of Microsoft conspiracy at play here?

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  • Same thing happens to me, but the problem goes away and surfaces seemingly at random, as far as I can tell.
    – Aubergine
    Commented Nov 6, 2012 at 20:08
  • Same here, it appears to fix its self, then the same thing happens again.
    – George Duckett
    Commented Nov 6, 2012 at 20:17

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
10

This sounds like the file storing that information got corrupted.

  • First, open the following folder in Windows Explorer:
    %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\CustomDestinations
  • Start Steam, wait for it to load, then close it again.
  • Now check the folder you've opened before. There should be one file that's been modified right now. In my case, the file name is 493e32cec2810e2e.customDestinations-ms, but you might have a different one.
  • Move it to your Recycle Bin or another folder. This way you're able to restore it, in case something breaks.
  • Restart Steam.
  • If everything worked, your jump list should be back and building once again.
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  • I don't have a %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder. If I put %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows into the run menu I get a folder with recent items but not recent. I also searched for a CustomDestinations folder anywhere within C:\Users\UserName\AppData but found nothing. I'm on windows 7.
    – George Duckett
    Commented Nov 7, 2012 at 19:24
  • The sub folder is hidden and shouldn't be visible in default folder view, however you should be able to open it. Maybe the missing path is part of the issue though. Open the "Recent Items" folder you've found, then click into your address bar - this should change the visible path - then add "\CustomDestinations" to the back and see what happens.
    – Mario
    Commented Nov 7, 2012 at 19:52
  • Hmm, I pasted in the link and it did find it, so guess it's hidden like you say. I found 2 files edited within one minute and moved them out of the folder. Then opened steam and my list is back (without me playing a game yet). Time will tell if this has sorted it!
    – George Duckett
    Commented Nov 7, 2012 at 20:40
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in steam go to settings, then interface... from here click on set task bar menu. The problem is there's too many options in your jump list, de-select a few and bingo more "recently played games" will appear

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  • That worked for me, while deleting the CustomDestination file didn't.
    – tourn
    Commented Sep 29, 2013 at 11:30
  • Thank you, I bumped up the number of items to show in windows but I really didnt want all that stuff under tasks.
    – tHeSiD
    Commented Feb 22, 2014 at 18:14
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This may not fix your problem, since you say it's always displaying at least one Recent item, but I ran into an issue where the Steam jump list never displayed any Recent items at all, and discovered that the option to store and display recent items had been turned off globally.

To check this option, right click the task bar and select Properties. On the Start Menu tab, make sure the "Store and display recently opened items in the Start menu and the taskbar" option is checked.

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  • It is checked, but thanks for catching another potential issue.
    – George Duckett
    Commented Nov 7, 2012 at 21:27
  • "This was already checked for me but I increased the amount to 20 and bam it worked :)" by annonnimous
    – Michel
    Commented Mar 29, 2013 at 15:53
  • This didn't work exactly for me either, but like Michel, increasing the amount did fix it. It seems all the items already in the Steam menu count as recent items, so having it at 10 limits it so that only one game can show up. Changing to 20 fixed it as well for me.
    – Mustard
    Commented Nov 2, 2013 at 19:49
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The jump list has a maximum size. Try removing some items from it (Steam > Settings > Interface > Taskbar preferences) and you should see more recent games appear in that section.

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