How do I clear the Run box history in Windows 8?

Question

Since there's no longer a taskbar/start menu Control Panel, how do you clear the history of the Run box in Windows 8?

Solution 1

Following are the steps to clear history of the Run box:

1. Go to the Start screen, and type regedit and open click on regedit to open the Registry Editor
2. Navigate to the key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU
3. On the right of the screen, there are keys that contain the recently entered commands on the Run Box. Delete the ones that you want to delete
4. Log off and Log back on.

That should delete history from the Run menu.

The UI Way to delete History

1. Type Clear History in the Search box. Then click on Settings on the Charms menu
2. Finally select Delete History to clear the history

However, that method deletes more than just the search history of Run Box. It also deletes history from other applications like File Explorer.

Solution 2

You can use CCleaner to erase the run history.

Solution 3

This did it for me

rundll32 inetcpl.cpl ClearMyTracksByProcess 1

Clear History From the Command Line

Comments

[David Pfeffer]

There's really no actual UI way to do this?

[Rakib Ansary]

There is actually a UI way to delete history. Please see the edited answer.

[avirk]

It should be accepted, the edit make it worth :)

[davidbaumann]

I hate "tools", but ccleaner is really good!