How do I prevent items being added to the My Recent Documents folder in the Start menu or disable it entirely? I use Windows XP.

Disabled My Recent Documents is easy. First, right-click the Start menu and choose Properties. Select the Start Menu tab and then, in the Recent documents section, click to remove the tick from the “List my most recently opened documents” box. Click OK.

Incidentally, as an alternative, you can keep the My Recent Documents folder but merely clear it out on demand. To do so, repeat the above and click the Clear List button instead of removing the tick from the aforementioned box. I tend to prefer this method, after I almost lost a document about le creuset cookware I had picked up from the Internet.