The Windows shell provides a function that lets you add a file to the list of the recent documents, that is the list that you can access from the Start menu:

Private Declare Function SHAddToRecentDocs Lib "shell32.dll" (ByVal dwFlags As _    Long, ByVal dwData As String) As Long

To add a file to the list of recent documents you just have to pass 2 in the first argument, which means that you’re passing a string, and pass the file name in the second argument:

SHAddToRecentDocs 2, "c:mylisting.txt"

(the value 1 in the first argument means that you’re passing a PIDL, which isn’t the case.) You can also clear the list of recent documents by passing a NULL in the second argument:

SHAddToRecentDocs 2, vbNullString