First, from the newest kid on the block, may you have a happy and safe new year in 2007. I have just registered and am looking forward to participating. Just used ccleaner, worked great.
The History folder in win xp is ornery, won't let you look at it, properties inquiry shows a bunch of files which are invisible, dos cursor just sits there and blinks. . .ORNERY.
To get a look at everything in the history file, copy it to a folder, then use winzip (ver. 9 on my computer) to compress it, then double click on the zip file in the right pane of windows explorer. This will show all the archived files. Double clicking on any of them will open it with the associated application (notepad for me).
Same thing works for the temporary internet files folder and the cookies folder. You probably don't have to compress them, just copy them and click on them.
Have just found out that some old information is still true:
1. When win xp creates the cookies\index.dat file at startup, it is 16 kb in size
2. The other 2 (temporary internet files and history) are created at 32 kb.
2a. Wrong. The default in . . .history\history.ie5 is 16 kb also. edited 2007 01 Jan
So, if your index.dat file shows up larger that 16 or 32 kb, it isn't "new".
Again, happy new year, be safe, and may God bless.