All Recent & Pinned File Links Lost

Anonymous
2024-03-20T14:16:19+00:00

I rebooted my PC today after a Windows update and afterwards in Word, Excel and PowerPoint my Recent Files list and Pinned Files List are all empty. And when I open an existing document, it does not show up in the Recent file list like it used to.

How do I fix both of these issues?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2024-03-22T15:04:46+00:00

For those who want to rollback to a previous version of Office 365 here are the directions.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-revert-to-an-earlier-version-of-office-2bd5c457-a917-d57e-35a1-f709e3dda841

The previous version information is: 3/4/2024 Version 2402 Build 17328.20162

To go further back click the following link and scroll down to "Version History".

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/update-history-microsoft365-apps-by-date?redirectSourcePath=%252fen-us%252farticle%252fae942449-1fca-4484-898b-a933ea23def7

You need to make sure you disable updates or the latest version will reinstall at some point.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-03-22T12:40:04+00:00

    Something I didn't report earlier.

    Before I uninstalled Microsoft 365 from the computer, the Microsoft 365 when opened and then selected Excel DID show recent files.

    When I clicked on one of the recent files it gave me a warning and I had to enable editing.

    MAYBE, this disabling of recent files in Excel and Word is intentional to force you to Microsoft 365.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-22T09:22:10+00:00

    Seems that the conversation has been about Microsoft 365.

    However, I don't have 365. I have Microsoft Office Home and Student 2021 and I just started seeing this problem, too. All my pinned documents in Excel and MS Word have disappeared and opening them to resave them does not make them appear on the Recents list.

    (Also, when I go to Programs and Features and right-click on the above program, there is no Repair option. Only Uninstall and Change.)

    Thank you.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-22T01:31:12+00:00

    This conforms my earlier comment that MS is probably using the same code for all its Office applications and all platforms, so when a bug appears in one application (Word in this case) they are afraid to change anything.

    It's a terrible design approach, since over time maintenance becomes harder and harder. I suppose they'll use that as pressure for affected users to upgrade to something newer. The almighty dollar rules.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-22T00:54:59+00:00

    Same problem. I agree with previous posts that it appears OneDrive related. My history disappeared except for the last files I saved to OneDrive (I primarily use Dropbox), which were months ago.

    Tried uninstalling OneDrive but no success. Hoping MS resolves this.

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