[brendandonhu]

Tip but I dont think it will help because the URLs that are in that drop down list are not the ones from index.dat.
Who knows, maybe it will work

[pgriffet]

For the URLs entered in the address bar and stored in the registry, they won't be cleaned if you rename/delete the index.dat under History.

As Deke has mentionned, the following works for Win9X

or just to clear the dropdown list in the searchbar to to Start/Settings/Taskbar & Start Menu/Start Menu Programs/click Clear.

But other histories are cleared, I mean the one of the Run box, the FindMRU and so on.

Deke, you can't delete the Content.IE5 folder under 9X/ME while Win is running because the index.dat file is locked. That's why I suggest a rename of the folder.
BTW, even for IE6, the folder is still called Content.IE5
If you want to have some technical information about the cache/History structure, take a look here :

http://www.purgeie.com

excerpt :

The Default Structure of the Primary I.E. Folders

Cache Folder:
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5 [dir]
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5\index.dat
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5\..random1.. [dir]
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5\..random1..\..cache files..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5\..random8.. [dir]
<base>\temporary internet files\content.ie5\..random8..\..cache files..

For the above, <base> illustrates the base portion of the path to the folder. This varies widely between the various combinations of Operating Systems and I.E. versions.

<base> is \windows or \documents and settings\'session'\local settings\temporary internet files

There is also a shareware on this site which allows to delete a single url from history and/or cache. With Explorer, you can only delete a single url from the cache but not from history.

System Requirements: Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP or NT 4.0
Internet Explorer 4.x - 6.x http://www.purgeie.com/
This trial version of "PurgeIE" may be installed and then evaluated for up to 15 non-contiguous days.

If I want to see index.dat content, I use Total Commander as I have mentionned, this file manager has a powerful read-only lister. You can see whatever file in hexa, Ascii, text, even if you don't have the software installed. I mean, you can see the content of a .doc file without Word installed. Of course, you will see some garbage but the text should be readable.
As for the index.dat, you will see all the URL and you can search for some sites. Something very powerful is that this tool opens a file within a second, whatever the size. Here is what the author said on his forum :

Lister works with a sliding buffer of 32k, which means that it holds only 32k of data around the current position in memory, and when you scroll out of this buffer, it loads data from the actual file. This way it can show huge files (several Gigabytes) almost instantaneously.

As I've seen some huge index.dat files, you will not wait to see the file content.

It's a shareware with one nag screen at startup but fully functional, works with all Windows (from 3.1 to XP, all 32-bit but the 3.1 version). No garbage in the registry.
It's the first program I install when I have to work on another PC, it fits on a floppy and when I leave, I desinstall it and there is no trace of TC in the registry or on the disk. It's the only shareware I use, all the other programs are freeware but no freeware has all the features of TC.