How do I delete the drop-down history in Windows Search (you know, Start, Search, For Files Or Folders)? In Internet Explorer all you have to do is hit the down arrow, then highlight and hit delete. That doesn’t work in the search window. Is there way to do it in the registry? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Just search for something, then run regedit and do a Find for that text. On my Windows 2000 system the entries are stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Explorer Bars**[a long string of random characters]\FilesNamedMRU**. Deleting all the values and rebooting should clear the dropdown box.
Do a search of the SDMB General Questions forum. IIRC this has been addressed several times before and there is a registry hack and/or a free utility you can DL from MS called “Powertools” for 95/98/ME that will also do this.
What windows version? I use a full computer maintenance program & it cleans this as part of its job 
This works for Win98:
- right-click on an empty area on the task bar
- choose “Properties”
- choose “Start Menu Programs” tab
- click “Clear” button in the documents menu section.
This will clear recent documents and other lists such as the search files list.