If you have items in Past Items that are have long ago been removed from the system and want to remove them from the list, use the following procedure.
Click Start > Run > Regedit
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify
Delete the IconStreams and PastIconsStream values.
Open Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del), click Processes tab, click Explorer.exe, then click End Process.
While in Task Manager, goto File > New Task > type explorer, then click OK
This will reset your icons and populate the bar with your currently running apps that make use of the tollbar area.
Be Blessed!
Chris
