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
    2024-03-24T18:44:37+00:00

    When not logged in, I can no longer edit anything so all functionality other than viewing is lost. The only reason there could be for this change is...well, likely nefarious in nature. We could use a Microsoft whistle blower.

    I agree. That is no good. One does not even own their editorship.

    Thank you for your response.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-23T18:53:23+00:00

    I use the one-time purchase model for Microsoft Office software rather than Microsoft's (apparently preferred) subscription model just for this very reason, plus it is less expensive over the lifetime of software use. I keep all of my files on local drives with backups on my LAN, not to the cloud (One Drive, iCloud or Google drive).

    If I have documents that need to be shared, I use Google docs and expect that Google has complete access to them via my Google account.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-23T18:40:38+00:00

    I have used Windows calendar for several years. At the same time I lost my Recent and Pinned documents, MS prevented me from accessing the calendar unless I open an Outlook account. It is shocking the control MS exerts on my own computer.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-03-23T18:33:20+00:00

    As of today, 23Mar24 1300CDT it looks like MS has fixed the issue. You may have to rebuild your recent and pinned lists, but the newly recent and newly pinned files seem to be "sticking."

    Agree. So far. Time will tell. But I've started rebuilding my "Recent" lists in Excel & Word

    I run two newer systems (Dec 2023).

    Win 11; One Drive disabled on both systems (never used); Run stand alone MS Office 2021.

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