Index: source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_operators.c
===================================================================
--- source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_operators.c	(revision 25666)
+++ source/blender/windowmanager/intern/wm_operators.c	(working copy)
@@ -958,8 +958,16 @@
 	col = uiLayoutColumn(split, 0);
 	uiItemL(col, "Recent", 0);
 	for(recent = G.recent_files.first, i=0; (i<6) && (recent); recent = recent->next, i++)
-		uiItemStringO(col, BLI_last_slash(recent->filename)+1, ICON_FILE_BLEND, "WM_OT_open_mainfile", "path", recent->filename);
+	{
+	    char const * const basename = BLI_last_slash(recent->filename);
 
+	    // if there is no / or \\ in recent->filename, ignore that history line
+	    if(!basename)
+		continue;
+
+	    uiItemStringO(col, basename+1, ICON_FILE_BLEND, "WM_OT_open_mainfile", "path", recent->filename);
+	}
+
 	uiItemS(col);
 
 	uiCenteredBoundsBlock(block, 0.0f);