How to prevent program from displaying in "recent opened programs" in Start menu?

Question

In Windows 7 64Bit everytime I open a program it will be added to list in start menu as "recent opened programs" if not existed. if I open the same program again, its shortuct order in "recent opened programs" list will go to up, so the most frequent application will be at the first place from up to down.

by right click on its icon and click on "Remove from this list", the shortcut will be removed from "recent opened programs".

but if I run the application again it will be putted directly at the top place in "recent opened programs".

my question is how to prevent a specific application to be added in the "recent opened programs" list and keep the current order? if "recent opened programs" list order depends on the number of calling for each application, where can I modify this number? registry ? where?

I don't want to pin apps in start menu, I just want to prevent specific app to be displayed in this menu.

Answer 1

Usually pinning is controlled by application developers. App developer uses Application User Model IDs (AppUserModelIDs) to control pinning to the Start menu and to the Taskbar.

Some processes cannot be pinned and do not appear in Recent Apps list. For example, Windows Photo Viewer runs in a host process dllhost.exe and it cannot be pinned.

There are several ways to achieve this:

1. Registering an Application as a Host Process

   An application can set the IsHostApp registry entry to cause that executable's process to be considered a host process by the taskbar.

   The following example shows the required registry entry. Note that the entry is not assigned a value; its presence is all that is required. It is a REG_NULL value.

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
      Applications
         example.exe
            IsHostApp
   

2. Exclusion Lists for Taskbar Pinning and Recent/Frequent Lists

   Applications, processes, and windows can choose to make themselves unavailable for pinning to the taskbar or for inclusion in the Start menu's MFU list.

   Add the NoStartPage entry to the application's registration as shown in this example:

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
      Applications
         Example.exe
            NoStartPage
   

   The data associated with the NoStartPage entry is ignored. Only the presence of the entry is required. Therefore, the ideal type for NoStartPage is REG_NONE.

Neither of these methods will work if an explicit AppUserModelID is applied to a shortcut, process, or window, it becomes pinnable and eligible for the Start menu MFU list.