Word 2003 (as well as the previous version of Word) displays a recently used file list. When you click the File menu within Word, you can see a list of documents you recently opened. It is a quick way of accessing files.

You can configure Word to display the recently used file list, as well as the maximum files to include in the list, by clicking Options from the Tools menu. From the General tab, place a check beside the Recently used file list option. You can then configure the number of files to display.

If you discover that this option is unavailable (greyed out), there may be a problem with one of the entries in the registry. To resolve the problem, click Start and click Run. Type regedit.exe and click OK. Navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer.

Double click NoRecentDocsHistory and change the value to 0.