You cannot remove recent projects from the start page in Visual Studio .NET 2002, Visual Studio .NET 2003, or Visual Studio 2005 (919486)

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

SYMPTOMS

When you start Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2002, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, or Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the start page lists the projects that have been most recently used. If you open a project and then later move or rename that project, the start page contains a reference to the project. You cannot remove the original project.

RESOLUTION

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.
To remove a project from the Recent Projects list, follow these steps.

Click Start, click Run, type Regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ProjectMRUList
Note
- The right pane of Registry Editor contains a Name column and a Data column. The Data column contains the path and name of the solution (.sln) file that you are trying to remove.
- To locate the registry key in Visual Studio .NET 2003, replace 8.0 with 7.1. To locate the registry key in Visual Studio .NET 2002, replace 8.0 with 7.0.
On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click Yes to confirm.
Close Registry Editor.

Next time that you start Visual Studio, the removed project will not be listed on the start page.