Since switched over to a new theme I needed to rearrange the way the sidebar should look. The list of archives was just to long, think 20 months is the default, to be aesthetic correct. So I started to look for a limit setting in de admin interface of WordPress, but could not find a way to change the limit. I probably looked over it. So browsing through the php scripts I found the file responsible for the way the archives section behaves.

I use WordPress version 2.5.1 from the Debian lenny repository

Edit the following file:

wordpress/wp-includes# vi general-template.php

And look for the following function:

cat -n general-template.php <...> 356 function wp_get_archives($args = '') { 357 global $wpdb, $wp_locale; 358 359 $defaults = array( 360 'type' => 'monthly', 'limit' => '10', 361 'format' => 'html', 'before' => '', 362 'after' => '', 'show_post_count' => false 363 ); 364 <...>

Change the options you whish, I lowered the limit to 10 months.