Relation between Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the Recent directory?

The Windows Start menu has a sub-menu Recently Used which contains exactly 15 links to recently used files.

But when I go to the directory in Windows Explorer:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent

then this directory contains 151 shortcut files!

So how are the Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the above Recent directory related?

Is it possible to customize the number of Recent items automatically kept in both the Recent sub-menu and in the Recent directory?

Are there other customizations of the Recent functionality in Windows?

My OS: Windows 7 x64 SP1

Answer

So how are the Recent sub-menu in the Windows Start menu and the above Recent directory related?

They are directly related. The Recent Items interface you see on your Start Menu displays the most recently accessed files, and the shortcuts that you see actually reside within the %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder. That same folder provides a much more comprehensive list of recently used files and folders than the Recent Items will typically display. The bottom line is that the Recent folder is the source for the Recent Items shortcuts you see on your Start Menu. If you delete an item in one, it will disappear from the other, too.

Is it possible to customize the number of Recent items automatically kept in both the Recent sub-menu and in the Recent directory?

You can increase the number of Recent Items shown on the Start Menu through a registry modification:

1. Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search line and press Enter.


2. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes.


3. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following location:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer



4. In the right pane of Explorer, right click on a empty space, click on New and DWORD (32-bit), type MaxRecentDocs, and press Enter.

   
   

   



5. In the right pane, double click on MaxRecentDocs.



6. Select (dot) Decimal, type in the maximum number of recent items you want to display, and click on OK.

   
   

   



7. Close the Registry Editor


8. Reboot the computer to apply the changes.

(Source)

Taking it a step further, it appears that the same registry setting affects the maximum number of items retained within the %AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent folder, also. Following a similar conversation on the Microsoft forums, one person said the following:

And this works. I set the registry key to 250 and my formerly-stuck-at-150-items Recent folder is now at 196 items.