Not sure exactly what you're asking here so I'll answer it with a couple of possibilities.

It doesn't matter what file type is represented, *.pdf, *.png, *.rtf, *.doc, even a shortcut to a folder, the shortcut won't open the file.

The files do open when manually located and activated so the programs work fine. It just seems that any access through the recent items list fails.

Did as instructed, the problem persists. No change.

Next?

Created a new administrator user account. Recent items works fine there.

Reckon I'll start disabling stuff to see if it comes back on my regular account.

Same issue on my laptop now. Clicking on an item in the Recent Items list causes a brief black screen and then my desktop reloads. Almost looks like the explorer.exe process is being shut down and restarted. I really don't want to have to rebuild this machine also...

No, the desktop which had the problem until I reinstalled everything is running eset, the work laptop is running bitdefender. Not uncommon anti-virus programs so they should be no problem.

Both are intel processors and both are running Win10 with all the updates.

Is there a debugger that one can run that can trap what's going on when the failure occurs?

It seems clear that something you are installing \ changing is causing the issue and may be outside of what we can help with.

Out of curiosity, where are said recent items actually - local or cloud \ network?  If you 'open file location', does it open it?

If you restart WinExp, does it then work?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager