As such, you cannot remove the projects that are listed in the Visual Studio recent projects list on the Start page. One option is the find the projects which you want to remove in the location specified by the shortcuts, then either delete them or rename them and come back to VS and click the project name, you will get a message box asking you whether to remove the entry from the list.
Another option is to edit the registry entry (Warning! All registry edits should be done at your own risk).
I found a nice blog post explaing all of this, I am just pasting what I may need in future here:
Visual Studio Recent Projects
Visual Studio .Net keeps it's list of projects in the registry. Depending on which version depends on which location the list is stored.
· Visual Studio 2002 - 7.0
· Visual Studio 2003 - 7.1
· Visual Studio 2005 - 8.0
· Visual Studio 2008 - 9.0
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.0\ProjectMRUList]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\7.1\ProjectMRUList]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\ProjectMRUList]
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\ProjectMRUList]
I recently installed a third party control and it had an option to add the control to my Visual Studio toolbox. When it installed the control to my toolbox, I noticed that the "Open / Create Website" option on the Start Page was missing. I tried everything from repairing the install to uninstalling and installing VS 2008 all over again. Nothing worked, but then a saw a comment on resetting the VS settings.
For some, it may not be an option but I had only a few custom settings which I could change again.
This is what I did and it worked:
1. Start VS IDE.
2. Tools -> Import and Export Settings
3. Select "Reset all settings", click Next
4. If you want to save the settings, go ahead, I did not save them. Then click Next
5. Select "Web Development Settings" and click Finish.
You should now get the Website option on your start page.