how to delete urls in the addy bar?

[ajmurphy]

every now and then, ill have a couple of urls that stay in my addy bar, even after ive deleted my temporary internet files, and cleared all my cookies, and cleared my history...

i even went into the temp folders and cleared them...unless i missed a couple...

anyone have any ideas? not really a big deal, just kinda annoying though...

[jmcgon]

Don't want to know what you're hiding.... but here's a fix :p
(see attachment)

[drichard]

The Metallica police checking your cookies again Anthony?? :rock:

[ajmurphy]

i tried that, but they still show up...

[abudhu]

A potentially silly question:
The urls still appear after you close and reopen the program correct?

However, seeing your reply was a day or two apart I think I know the answer...

[jmcgon]

I assumed you were clearing the history as well... I just did it now and it works for me :\

[fturtle]

there are files called 'index.dat' that IE (windows) uses to associate filenames with locations, etc (for use with cache and cookies and whatnot). a couple of them store URLs and are used with IE's 'autocomplete' in the URL bar.

i believe the only two that are accessed when you type something in the URL bar are these:

\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\index.dat
\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\index.dat

..if you delete them, those URLs shouldn't be there anymore. but, explorer maintains open handles to these files at all times, so you can't delete them while it's running. also, any programs that use IE controls to do any web rendering stuff (maybe AIM? don't know) will have handles of these files open -- so, just quit everything to be sure :shock:

to delete them, go to start>run, type cmd, hit enter. if you want, do it twice so you have a command prompt for each directory...then cd to the directories above. use ctrl-alt-delete to get the task manager up, go to the processes tab, find explorer.exe and end the process. then, in your command prompt, go to the directories and 'del index.dat'. this is completely harmless: they'll be rebuilt once they're needed again. in task manager, you can then go to file>new task and type explorer to restart explorer.

[ajmurphy]

A potentially silly question:
The urls still appear after you close and reopen the program correct?

However, seeing your reply was a day or two apart I think I know the answer...

yeah, i went into those two directories where it has my temp and temporary internet files folders, then i deleted everything in there...

ive cleared the history, and everything, but they still appear...

kyle, how do i access those from cmd? i tried it, but it didnt get there... i may have done something wrong though...

[fturtle]

when you launch the command prompt, it should start in your user directory. if you launch two, you'd do this in one:

cd local settings\history\history.ie5

and this in the other:

cd local settings\temporary internet files\content.ie5

then, all of the stuff i described above. when you're deleting index.dat in the two directories: del index.dat

[abudhu]

Cmd prompt ftw. Also, post 600. Woot.

[ajmurphy]

well i guess i did it right, they dont show up anymore...

i typed in those directories on cmd after closing explorer...it asked what program i wanted to open the index.dat files, but i hit cancel...since i didnt know what to open then with...but now they dont show up anymore...so not sure what i did or didnt do, but i guess as long as it worked lol

[ajmurphy]

ok a follow up question, i did a search on my computer for index.dat, am i able to just delete them all? i got like 10 different ones showing up, some in documents and settings, but some are in the WINDOWS folder...

is it ok if i just delete any index.dat file?