My command prompt history is quite long, and a lot over time is not essentially garbage. I was looking at a way to clean it out. Most of the solutions online I found were not correct - I don’t know if things changed over time, but the latest version of Windows I am on (Windows 10 Pro 1803), it did not work.

So, here are two ways that you can do this. One is using the registry editor (RegEdit), and the other is running a simple script that you can either copy and paste from below or you can download and run it .

If you are going to be using RegEdit, and living dangerously then Press WinKey + R and type “regedit” (without quotes) and press enter to get the Registry Editor going as shown below.

Run command to start Registry Editor

And on the new Windows navigate to the following key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU and delete that. You can right click on the key name and choose delete.

It is important to double check because if you miss it, or delete something else, there is no recovery. (Why do you think I was saying, you like to live dangerously). See the screenshot below.

NOTE: It is always recommended to backup the registry before doing this, so at least you could restore it back to the state. To backup select File -> Export.

A better way, and less dangerous would be to run the following script in a elevated command prompt (i.e. a Admin command prompt) which will do the same thing, but more safer. You can just copy the command from below and paste it. Or alternatively you can download this simple script and run it locally (also from a elevated command prompt).

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reg delete "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU" /f