Can’t unpin an Office item from the jump list

I recently ran into an issue with a pinned Excel 2016 document that wouldn’t go away. I’d pinned it to the Excel jump list (on the Windows 8.1 task bar) and despite clicking the ‘Unpin from this list’ icon next to the document itself, it was well and truly “stuck”.

I tried simply unpinning the Excel icon from the taskbar but that didn’t help. I installed Windows and Office updates and rebooted but the document kept appearing.

A bit of searching led me to the AutomaticDestinations folder, which can be safely (?) cleared from a command line like so:

del /F /Q %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations\*

Copy or type the above as one line into a command prompt.

Note this is likely a hidden folder but despite having Explorer configured to show hidden items, I couldn’t see it within the Recent folder.

This command comes from the tutorial (option 3) at https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/81483-jump-lists-reset-clear-all-items.html, which also contains a second delete command for CustomDestinations and suggests logging off/rebooting for full effect. I didn’t need to run this second command or reboot. You may find it helpful if the above delete command doesn’t work on its own in your case.

It’s important to be aware your pinned jump lists for other applications will also be cleared, included Explorer.

SharePoint 2013 RTM on MSDN

The SharePoint 2013 RTM bits and the Office 2013 bits are now available on MSDN.

Fixing broken Office 2010 icons

A few weeks back a Windows Update install left my machine hanging and I was forced to reboot even though the screen said 'don't restart or all hell will break loose!' All hell then broke loose.

Or at least the icons for my Office 2010 applications disappeared, having been replaced by the unhelpul default icon.

I don't seem to be the only one to have experienced this exact sequence of events but the usual places for help offered none. There were many suggestions to rebuild icon caches but navigating to the relevant directory in my case revealed it didn't exist. Someone even mentioned a virus uncovered during ten hours of MS support telephoning! I continued hoping Windows Update would come to my rescue with an update for the update but nothing was forthcoming. In fact, I noticed more and more updates were now failing, particularly with error codes 80070643 and 80070644 noted (i.e. during the SP1 update and for a Definition Update).

Worst of all I couldn't initiate an Office repair from the Programs and Features menu—not sure if my machine was in an inconsistent state but opting to Change my install would bring up the Office 2010 change/repair initialisation screen before it would quickly disappear.

Thankfully Hitescape, in one of the many forums I visited, suggested running winword /r from a command prompt fixed the problem for them. Apparently this kicks off the Office repair function. I gave it a go and watched my icons return to their proper place on my task bar one by one! Just for kicks, I then attempted my to install the long list of failed updates and they all went in nicely!

Ps. I should mention I also followed these steps to ‘fix’ my .NET 4 install before I resorted to the above: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/KB976982 No idea if it made any difference.

Btw, I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise x64 with Office 2010 Professional Plus x32 (RTM at the time).

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Cannot open a TFS query in Excel

After successfully upgrading from VS2008/TFS2008 to VS2010/TFS2010 in the last few months, I today realised my machine still had an outstanding issue opening TFS queries from Visual Studio in Excel . After running the query in VS and clicking Open in Microsoft Office –> Open Query in Microsoft Excel, I was the reluctant recipient of this error message and no Excel openage:

Team Foundation Error

TF80012: The document cannot be opened because there is a problem with the installation of the Microsoft Visual Studio v10.0 Team Foundation Office integration components.  Please see the Team Foundation Installation Guide for more information.

While a number of solutions were offered, what follows is the complete set of steps I followed to fix the problem in my workstation environment (Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 with Office 2010 x86 and VS2010 RTM + TFS bits):

1. I first repaired Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate from Control Panel. This took a while and required a restart of my workstation. All of my extensions and settings were retained (I think). On its own, this didn't fix the problem but others have reported is did for them.

2. From a command prompt running as administrator (I'm in the local administrators on my machine but that's not good enough), I re-registered the TFSOfficeAdd-in.dll. I only ran the x86 command because VS2010 is a 32-bit app and I'm running the 32-bit version of Office on Windows x64; while the same assembly exists in the 64-bit Program Files directory, I'm assuming it's for the 64-bit version of Office 2010 (just guessing):

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\TFSOfficeAdd-in.dll"

3. Starting Excel from that same command window to ensure Excel started as an admin, I removed the v9.0 Team Foundation Add-In since I noticed it was showing alongside the v10.0 add-in and I wasn't sure if it was wreaking havoc. At this point, the Team menu was visible in Excel when running as admin but not when running as myself. In Excel 2010, you can manage add-ins from the File –> Options menu; click the Add-Ins tab and then choose COM Add-Ins from the Manage drop down.

4. I finally opened Excel again as myself and enabled the Team Foundation Add-In (v10.0). The Team menu now appeared in Excel.

At this point I can now open a TFS query in Excel.

Note, others have suggested deleting their Windows profile solved the problem for them, at the cost of deleting all of their settings, My Documents, etc. If you go down that path, be careful!

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How to recover permanently deleted files in Outlook

I receive hundreds of emails a day from various systems and the occasional email from humans; in both cases, most of that email gets deleted straight away. Because my Deleted Items folder clogs up quickly as a result of this barrage, I've become a chronic shift-delete kind of guy over time—in other words, get rid of it, I don't want to ever see it again, goodbye. This generally works quite well for me and I've never had the need to recover something I've permanently deleted. Until today.

Despite it's fancy new ribbon, Outlook 2010 still allows me to delete all email below the Today group (and other groups)—a complete useability flaw, if you ask me but I'm not a Microsoft genius and I suppose the more barbaric users out there may actually use this "feature".

So I accidentally did just that today—my machine was bogged down running a SQL query: my fat fingers accidently moved the highlight to the Date: Today heading at about 2:30pm, I hit the shift-delete combo, said No I don't want to permanently delete when prompted (having realised what I'd done), and everything that I had yet to file from my Inbox and actually wanted to keep got deleted anyway.

Sigh. The IT guys proposed some registry hacks that didn't seem to apply to 2010 until someone finally found the almighty Recover Deleted Items button on the Folder menu:

Clicking this button brings up a list of email messages it can recover from somewhere (Exchange? I don't know and don't care) with details about date, sender, subject, etc. You can recover all files or individual files.