[shenton]

How do I delete the four Internet Explorer history entries seen in the screenshot?

I tried these 2 general methods and it wouldn't delete the four Internet Explorer history entries:

1. Internet Explorer
- Tools > Internet Options >
- In Browsing History > Delete > Delete All > Check Also Delete files and settings stored by Add-ons > Click Yes

2. Internet Explorer
- Click the <star> to open the left Favourite/History pane
- Right click on the Internet Explorer history entry
- Select Delete
- Click Yes to confirm delete
- When I reopen the Favourite/History pane, the Internet Explorer history entry is still showing

Both methods will delete all other Internet Explorer history entries except the four entries.

How do I delete the Internet Explorer history entries??

Thanks

[helpful]

Use ccleaner to delete the web history and the index.dat file

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

[shenton]

CCleaner did not work.

I downloaded and installed CCleaner. Then I run CCleaner, analyzed and deleted the temp files/history. I run CCleaner again to be sure and CCleaner said 0 files.

When I open Internet Explorer, Favourite/History pane, I can still see the 4 history links.

What else do I need to delete?

Thanks

[helpful]

Make sure to select the index.dat, you will need to reboot for the file to be deleted.

[shenton]

Yes, I did select the index.dat and restart after running the cleaner as per screenshot. The four Internet Explorer history entries has not been deleted and is still showing after the restart.

One thing I notice is the four Internet Explorer history entries can only be seen when Internet Explorer is running a local html file on the local disc. For example C:\Testing\index.html. Here, the Favourite/History pane will show the 4 history entries. (The 4 history entries are web links/pages on the internet and not local html files.)

If I open an web page from the internet, eg. http://forums.techguy.org/, Internet Explorer will open in a new browser. This Internet Explorer browser will not have the 4 history entries.

It would seems to me that CCleaner deleted the index.dat/history entries for the "world wide web" Internet Explorer settings.

Because I still see the 4 history entries when I open a local html file, it seems that the index.dat file for the local Internet Explorer settings is different from the "world wide web" Internet Explorer settings. If this is correct, where is the index.dat for the local Internet Explorer settings?

Thanks

[VistaRookie]

Use CCleaner to clear everything that it does clear, then:
Open Windows Explorer.
Navigate here and see if you can find those entries.
If you find them, right click and delete. You may
find that you don't have permission to delete them.

Make sure you follow the entire path - you might see
a History folder before reaching the correct one.
C:\Users\ -your username- \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\

Once you get to the history folder - keep opening all
folders to try to locate those in question.

[shenton]

This is most bizarre..

I went to the location C:\Users\ -your username- \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\

Here I delete the 4 history entry as seen below (deleting one at a time has the same effect):



For whatever reason, it deleted only one entry as seen below. Here I can clearly see one history entry from the 4 is deleted:



When I do a F5 refresh, the deleted entry came back as seen here:




So somehow those links were tracked somewhere, when I delete from history, it will put back the entry to it?

How do I delete the 4 history entries for good??

Thanks

[VistaRookie]

Make sure Internet Explorer and other windows are closed
(except Windows Explorer)...see if that allows them to
delete.

[shenton]

Yes, I had all windows closed except windows explorer. It won't let me delete the 4 history entries.

Here are my steps this time:

- From Internet Explorer, I delete all browsing history/files again
- Close all windows except windows explorer
- Goto C:\Users\ -your username- \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\
- In History folder, I can see "Today"
- Delete "Today", this does not go to Recycle Bin

- Open Internet Explorer, C:\appl\index.html
- In the Internet Explorer's Favourite/History pane, I can still see the 4 history entries
- Note: the 4 history entries can be seen if the option is "By Most Visited", if the option is "By Date" or "By Site", it didn't show them

- In Windows Explorer, ...\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\ folder, I don't see the "By Date", "By Site" or "By Most Visited" sub-folders as seen in earlier screenshot. I see "Computer" and expanding "Computer" showed the index.html that I opened


So somehow, the 4 history entries are still showing up in the "local" Internet Explorer settings. Anything else to do to delete them?

Thanks

[VistaRookie]

You can try this program. Hopefully it will work for you.

UNLOCKER 1.9.0 BY CEDRICK 'NITCH' COLLOMB:
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

[shenton]

No sure how "unlocker" would help. When I said "It won't let me delete the 4 history entries", I did not mean "it is being used by another person or program".

Pressing delete will delete the history entry.

When "yes" is click to the Delete confirmation dialog, the history pane in Internet Explorer will be automatically closed.

When the history pane is reopened, the deleted history entry is recreated* in Internet Explorer.

* I said recreate because earlier in Windows Explorer, I deleted the history entry, pressing F5 to refresh brings back the history entry.

Thanks

[VistaRookie]

Now I see what you were saying - thought the issue was they would not
delete at all. You are saying they will delete but return.

The only other place those should be is in the history index.dat file,
which unfortunately, is invisible using windows. I am under the impression
CCleaner will delete that file on reboot though.

C:\Users\ -your username- \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\
In that history folder, there should a sub-folder called History.IE5 (that
you can't see) and in there, 2 files (that you can't see).

Desktop.ini
Index.dat

I never keep any history or autocomplete and there could even be
another invisible folder - not sure.

Here is what I did and you can try this if you'd like to. I have KillBox,
which is similar to Unlocker except it allows you to enter a full path
to the file to delete.

My history index.dat was 65KB before running KillBox and after
running it, 16KB. Which proves it did delete the old index.dat and
a new empty index.dat was created.

KillBox.Net:
http://killbox.net/

Here is how to use it. Use this path (copy it):
C:\Users\ -your username- \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History\History.IE5\index.dat

Close all programs.
Paste it into KillBox. Click the radio button to Delete on Reboot.
Single file button should be activated at that point. Then click on
the 'X' in the red circle - you should be promted to reboot. Then
go back and see if that got rid of the pests!

If that doesn't get rid of them, just not sure where they are hiding.

[shenton]

I tried killbox and it removed the index.dat but the history entries are still present.

I think there is either another index.dat somewhere else or the history entries are kept in another file.

When I reboot the system after deleting index.dat, I delete browsing history from IE and open http://forums.techguy.org/. The history pane does not show any of the old history entries (see screenshot)

Next, I delete browsing history from IE and open "C:\doc\Big Oyster, The.html", a file from my local disc. This would show the 4 history entries. (see screenshot) I can delete these history entries either from IE (right click, delete) or Windows Explorer as done previously, but they will 'make their way' back here when I refresh the screen.

So either I'm not deleting the right index.dat or the 4 history entries are stored somewhere else

Figure 1: Delete browsing history and open http://forums.techguy.org/




Figure 2: Delete browsing history and open C:\doc\Big Oyster, The.html



Thanks

[VistaRookie]

There are several index.dats possible but as I stated, CCleaner
should delete them. I just figured we would do one manually,
just to be on the safe side that it was indeed being deleted.
Are you the only user? Each user account should have its
own index.dats.

OK one last place that might be it and a possible idea?

Right click taskbar. Choose properties. Click Start Menu Tab.
Click Classic Start Menu->To remove records of recently accessed
documents, programs, and Web sites, click Clear Button.

How many days do you have your history set at? Try setting to '0'
(zero days) for a couple of days and run CCleaner, see if that gets
rid of it.

[shenton]

Yes, I'm the only user on the computer (there is only one login user).

I tried the right click taskbar/properties.. and it did not remove the history entries.

The no of days for history was at 20 days default, I set it to 0 and run CCleaner. That too did not remove the history entries.

This is most bizarre, just don't make sense why those four history entries cannot be removed while all other history entries are removed. Thanks for the help.

Thanks