I saw in a thread at Wilders that CCleaner really does not delete index.dat files. What's up with that? True, or BS?
not quite sure.
http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?showto...index\.dat
may have some useful info there.
I think it's true. All they are is files that contain the history of websites you visted. No harm in delelting them. They are also known as Cookies to some people.
i thought cookies were only in the cookie folder?
also, the point of CCleaner is to erase your history so i think that MrG set it up to clean them.
Cookies can be stored in other folders as well. Don't no where but as far as I know they are stored in different folders I believe.
CCleaner does not wipe the index.dat-files. They will remain in your system with their contents.
In addition, the index.dat-files are protected by the running system.
Microsoft claims that is for web-page-load-speed-up - what is actually not true.
Check for the following issues:
a. Do you have a limited User-Account on XP?
b.
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist<number>\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Cookies\index.dat
you can delete those Registry-Entries manually, but I can recommend a free software that is doing the job for you.
http://www.browsertools.net/downloads/IEPr...KeeperSetup.exe
Oliver
So essentially no system cleaning software/privacy software can rid the system of index.dat files because that's the nature of Windows?
There are a number of programs available that will flag index.dat files to be removed on the next windows boot. This one, for example: http://support.it-mate.co.uk/?mode=Product...=index.datsuite
CCleaner does not wipe the index.dat-files. They will remain in your system with their contents.
In addition, the index.dat-files are protected by the running system.
Microsoft claims that is for web-page-load-speed-up - what is actually not true.
Check for the following issues:
a. Do you have a limited User-Account on XP?
b.
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist<number>\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Cookies\index.dat
you can delete those Registry-Entries manually, but I can recommend a free software that is doing the job for you.
http://www.browsertools.net/downloads/IEPr...KeeperSetup.exe
Oliver
I am running XP and CCleaner cleaned out
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist<number>\index.dat
It didn't clean out
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Cookies\index.dat but that is a tiny 46 kb file
I don't see the
Documents and Settings\<YourUserName>\Local Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat
are you sure that is the correct path.
I looked at the dat files and they were very small before they were removed. How can that be when they log every web site you visit?
So essentially no system cleaning software/privacy software can rid the system of index.dat files because that's the nature of Windows?
It is possible to delete protected files too, but usually not when Windows is loaded. But it can be scheduled to be removed at next startup or something.
Anthony wrote:
I looked at the dat files and they were very small before they were removed. How can that be when they log every web site you visit
The size of a clean Cookies index.dat file is 16 KB.
The size of a clean History index.dat file is also 16 KB.
When clean, the size of Temporary Internet Files (Cache) index.dat file is 32 KB.
Index.dat files only store the references of visited wep-pages, not the wep-pages itsself.
Another approach to delete index.dat files manually (xp, nt, 2000) might be, to log-in with a different (temporary) user-account and trying to delete the index.dat files out of your own account, since win xp doesn?t take a hold on those files anymore when logged in with a different user-name.
For 98 and Me you can delete the whole C:\WINDOWS\HISTORY\ HISTORY.IE5 folder with its content into the receycle-bin and restart the system immediately afterwards. The folder will be recovered empty with a pure index.dat file after reboot.
Oliver