Windows Home Server 2011 : Using the Local Group Policy Editor (part 3) - Increasing the Size of the Recent Documents List, Enabling the Shutdown Event Tracker

4. Increasing the Size of the Recent Documents List

If you work with files on the Windows Home Server machine, you can customize the Windows Home Server Start menu to include the Recent Items menu, which displays a list of the 15 documents you worked on most recently. Right-click Start, click Properties, click Customize, activate the Recent Items check box, and then click OK.

Fifteen documents should be plenty on any Windows Home Server machine that you use purely as a server. However, if you also use Windows Home Server as a workstation or development platform, you may find that 15 documents isn’t enough. In that case, you can use a group policy to configure Windows Home Server to display a higher number of recent documents.

Here are the steps to follow to customize the size of the My Recent Documents list:

1.	Open the Local Group Policy Editor window, as described earlier in this chapter.
2.	Navigate to the User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer branch.
3.	Double-click the Maximum Number of Recent Documents policy.
4.	Click Enabled.
5.	Use the Maximum Number of Recent Documents spin box to specify the number of documents you want Windows Home Server to display (see Figure 9). Figure 9. Use the Maximum Number of Recent Documents policy to customize the size of the Start menu’s Recent Items list.
6.	Click OK.

5. Enabling the Shutdown Event Tracker

In Windows Home Server, when you select Start, Shut Down (or click the Shut Down button in the Windows Security screen as described earlier; see “Customizing the Windows Security Screen”), Windows Home Server goes right ahead and shuts down the system.

If you want to keep track of why you shut down or restarted Windows Home Server, you can enable a feature called Shutdown Event Tracker. With this feature, you can document the shutdown event by specifying whether it is planned or unplanned, selecting a reason for the shutdown, and adding a comment that describes the shutdown.

Here are the steps to follow to use a group policy to enable the Shutdown Event Tracker feature:

1.	Open the Local Group Policy Editor window, as described earlier in this chapter.
2.	Navigate to the Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System branch.
3.	Double-click the Display Shutdown Event Tracker policy.
4.	Click Enabled.
5.	In the Shutdown Event Tracker Should Be Displayed list, select either Always (as shown in Figure 10) or Server Only. (This ensures that the Shutdown Event Tracker appears in Windows Home Server; the third option—Workstation Only—displays the Tracker only on computers running as a client, such as XP or Vista, so it doesn’t apply to Windows Home Server.) Figure 10. To document Windows Home Server shutdowns, enable the Display Shutdown Event Tracker policy.
6.	Click OK.

Now when you select Start, Shut Down, you see the version of the Shut Down Windows dialog box shown in Figure 11. The Shutdown Event Tracker group gives you three new controls to operate: