In Windows 7 it was as easy as typing in the Start menu ("Search programs" input) the name of a recently opened file.
This funcionality seems absent in Windows 10. I've checked that "Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar" is enabled - and in the File explorer, I see the file I want to open in the "Recent Files" section. But, still, it is not found when I type its name the "Search Quick access" box - as neither in the main search box, in the toolbar.
After several attempts to get Windows Search to include contents from %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Recent by adding it to Indexed Locations and even creating a separate Recent folder synchronized with the contents of the Windows Recent folder and adding that to Indexed Locations and re-building the search index, I gave up and started looking at third party solutions.
I tried out Classic Shell and it works exactly the way Windows should in the first place. If you can live without using the default Windows Start Menu altogether (or use it sparingly) I'd suggest replacing it with Classic Shell.
This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but if you go to file options
and set file explorer to open to quick access
.
Then when you press Windows + E it will take you to quick access, displaying your recent files.
I have done some tests of Windows 10 against Windows 7, and I think that the root of the problem is in that recent-files in Windows 10 is now a bit broken (by design).
Background
The recent-files mechanism in Windows works by creating a link to any accessed
file in the folder
C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent.
In addition, Each time that a file is selected in save/open dialog-box,
its name is added under the registry key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSavePidlMRU.
You can have a look at both places at once, using the free Nirsoft utility RecentFilesView.
Test results
Having looked at the evolution of the contents of the above Recent folder, I have come to the conclusion that Windows 10 now limits the creation of the links in the folder.
The file-types I have seen being linked-to are what I guess Windows 10 considers as documents, which includes file-types such as Word (.doc) and Zip (.zip). Other file-types than these two are certainly included as well, but I have not tested more of them.
This new limitation on the contents of the Recent folder is very probably a performance measure, designed to avoid creating too many links. A large Recent folder may slow-down the computer. Cleaners such as CCleaner usually include it when scrubbing clean the computer.
I believe then that there is no Microsoft solution to this problem in Windows 10. I have looked for third-party products, but found none, probably because in previous versions of Windows such tools were not necessary.
If you find Windows 10 to be lacking features that you need, it is easy enough to downgrade back to Windows 7.
