<p>When I use Emacs I want to be able to easily display and navigate through a list of files I worked on from not just the current session but from previous sessions. (BTW, running Emacs 22.2 on Windows)</p>

From
Joe Grossberg
's blog (no longer available):
But if you're using GNU Emacs 21.2
  (the latest version, which includes
  this as part of the standard distro),
  you can just put the following lines
  into your .emacs file
```
```
;; recentf stuff
(require 'recentf)
(recentf-mode 1)
(setq recentf-max-menu-items 25)
(global-set-key "\C-x\ \C-r" 'recentf-open-files)
```
```
Then, when you launch emacs, hit
CTRL
-
X
CTRL
-
R
. It will show a list of
  the recently-opened files in a buffer.
  Move the cursor to a line and press
ENTER
. That will open the file in
  question, and move it to the top of
  your recent-file list.
(Note: Emacs records file names.
  Therefore, if you move or rename a
  file outside of Emacs, it won't
  automatically update the list. You'll
  have to open the renamed file with the
  normal
CTRL
-
X
CTRL
-
F
method.)
Jayakrishnan Varnam has a
page
  including screenshots
of how this
  package works.
Note:
You don't need the
```
(require 'recentf)
```
line.