The folder C:\Documents and Settings\>USER<\Cookies contains an index.dat-file, that is not removed by Ccleaner. Trying instead to manually delete this file results in an error-message telling, that this file cannot be removed as it is used by another person or program. Since this file contains browser-history (I copied it, opened the copy as a txt-file and found it out that way), it somehow ought be included in the files, that Ccleaner usually removes. Someone, who knows, which process(es), that lock that file? Knowing the name of the process(es) it would be possible to kill it/them via process explorer before running Ccleaner. Or should just this index.dat-file by some reason not be deleted? Or is there a more suitable/advisable solution?
By the way - information, that might be interesting: Windows XP Home SP2 (refuse to install SP3 and no money for Windows 7 plus upgrading of PC, it would demand), Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702, Firefox 1.9.2.4079, Opera 11.1.1190.0 (used depending on purpose of connecting to the internet).
English is neither my native nor my "actually speaking" language, so please excuse wordings that look unfamiliar, thanks.
Got no e-mail (though requested on registration as member) saying that there was a reply to my question - that explains, why I did not react to your reply earlier, sorry for that and thank you for your reply, Alan_B!
Have to correct my original question: Wrote by mistake, that the folder containing the index.dat-file in question was "C:\Documents and Settings\>USER<\Cookies", it actually is C:\Documents and Settings\>USER<\IECompatCache INSTEAD! Of course such a mistake in the basic information is not unlikley to considerably change the probability of solving the problem....!
Anyway restarting the pc and by that starting a new session of Windows seems not to mean 'cleaning' the history in that index.dat-file nor replacing it with an empty one: Though I am sure I did visit a determined web-page quite a long time ago and restarted the pc a lot of times since that, this web-page is still traceable in that index.dat-file today! On the other hand, another determined web-page, which I visited very recently and still could find in that index.dat-file yesterday, is not traceable any longer today!? That contradicts the theory, that every new visit of a web-page wipes out or replaces the oldest or any entry in that index.dat-file.
By any means I regard it as a matter of course, that Ccleaner should take care even of this index.dat-file (and actually some others, too, which are not deleted) since I checked "Clean index.dat-files". If Ccleaner by some reason does not manage to fulfill this or any other task, it at least should inform about this fact by some kind of message.
A "....Cache"-folder as C:\Documents and Settings\>USER<\IECompatCache should be possible to empty somehow, but how and under which condition?
Actually the solution was so simple, that it did not came to my mind: Just add the path for that index.dat-file in Ccleaner under "Alternatives" => "Include".
My mistake was, that I took for granted, that Ccleaner SEARCHES for index.dat-files to delete, but obviously it just deletes these files in pre-defined folders. So if by some reason a new folder containing a index.dat-file is added, it even has to be added the way described above until it hopefully will be included in Ccleaners list of pre-defined folders to delete index.dat-files from.