I too have had too many birthdays, Rhino. No worries my friend.
What does removing this file accomplish that setting Preferences to not use the Hub doesn’t?
I’ve had the Preference unchecked for ages. Tried renaming this file. Launching Cubase appears to be the same in both cases. Am I missing something (spoiler alert: yes, all the time).
So after reading all the replies, I wonder how the hubby from Steinberg would feel if he ever read them 
unwanted 
Another approach (although this doesn’t offer the option to kill the hub) is via the Studio menu:
Studio → More Options → System Component Information, and select the “Program Plug-Ins” tab.
For example, if you don’t use head tracking, I think it would be safe to disable it.
When I upgraded to VST Connect Pro, I found this useful to disable VST Connect SE to avoid confusion.
Ctrl+N (Windows) will bring up the Project Assistant. Not too much extra work to avoid seeing the annoying display pop up every time I launch Cubase. More often than not, though, I am accessing Recent Projects from the File drop down. I have had the Hub disabled in Preferences since the Hub first existed.
I suspect there is a strong correlation between folks who turn off the Hub and those who grasp the difference between “mode” & “timebase”
Totally moving the file was the same as renaming it. But the state of the Hub Preference did make a difference. If the Preference to use the Hub was checked but the file unavailable then the Project Assistant automatically opens. If unchecked, with or without the file, the Assistant doesn’t automatically open and you need to open it manually when needed.
+1
Regards 
removing those unused dll’s can have a profound benefit in loading time, Cubase starts quicker, uses less memory.
Updates can require it to be able to access the older install files, when it detects those dll’s missing.
I usually rename them, so I don’t loose track of them, and usually forget to rename them back, when there is an update 
Is it worth a few seconds in saved startup time ?
Back when we used 32bit, and had very limited memory… but we don’t anymore.
Rather than use the Recent Projects list in Cubase, I find the Windows alternative (mostly) more useful.
In Windows at least since 7 if you pin a Program to the Task Bar then it will start building its own independent recent files list. So most of the time I launch Cubase by Right-Clicking the Cubase icon on the Task Bar and selecting a Project from the list. There are two key advantages of using this over the Cubase internal list. One is that you can readily remove items from the list so it doesn’t need to show any Projects you don’t want. Second, you can pin Projects to the list. These will stay on the list, at the very top, until you unpin them. I mostly use this for Projects currently in progress. Although there is a Project I use for vocal exercises that has been pinned on the list a decade or so. The one bad thing about this list is that to initially get on the list the Project needs to be opened once in Windows (like from Explorer) and not internal to Cubase.
Anyway it’s worth checking out.
You can, but I worded it as a question. Is it worth it ?
I think it is up to each and everyone to make up their minds if they feel comfortable doing so, or at least have some idea of the consequences.
I don’t as the computer geek I am, disagree with You. That is the way I keep my old 3770k computer running smoothly. On my 9900k computer I haven’t bothered as it runs great even with a bunch of background tasks.
Hope that makes sense ? Do You really fundamentally disagree with that ?
Interesting. I’ll have to investigate that one. I do have Cubase pinned to the taskbar, but I can’t say I have ever right-clicked on it .
This doesn’t work for me with Cubase or SpectraLayers, but it does work with WaveLab, and I use it all the time … odd.
I’ve never been able to figure out how files get added to that. I think it depends on how the program is launched though. I have never seen it work with any consistency.