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Thread ID: 39746 2003-11-16 02:59:00 XP TIP: Delete index.dat(s) Terry Porritt (14) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
192406 2003-11-17 07:49:00 Just saw your second post agent.
Basically index.dat stores history of sites visited, and cookies stored in the Cookies folder etc.
I still havent really fathomed the various folders that contain virtually the same things, like several cookie folders with their own index.dat.
Terry Porritt (14)
192407 2003-11-17 07:51:00 Oh dear, forgot Fire and Ice, Im running XP Pro SP1. Terry Porritt (14)
192408 2003-11-17 09:36:00 Heres another tricky way of deleting the index.dat file. It works in Win2k but Im not sure about XP.
Start up a Dos window and navigate to the director where the index file is stored.
Now Ctrl Alt Del and end task explorer. Then flick back to your dos window and hey presto you should be able to delete that dirty index.dat file.
Now close your dos window and start up a new instance of explorer and you're away.
Does someone want to try this in XP and see if it works?
Barnabas (4562)
192409 2003-11-17 09:49:00 Works in XP too, but you do have to close every open window first. agent (30)
192410 2003-11-17 10:11:00 I don't use IE and find my index.dat to be very boring. :D -=JM=- (16)
192411 2003-11-17 21:47:00 Thanks Barnabas for that tip. It works in XP too, but also if del /s /q "C:\documents and settings\index.dat" is used to delete, then all three index.dat are deleted in the user profile, the extra switches in delete command are quite useful. Terry Porritt (14)
192412 2003-11-17 23:05:00 If really want a usefull cli for Doze why not try Cgywin-www.cygwin.com Lots and lots of commands/usefull switches. XPs default cli is boooooring in compared to it. mark.p (383)
192413 2003-11-18 00:05:00 Terry I'm a late arrival on this thread. Tell me again why you want to get rid of this folder/file? I too run XP Pro and might have a dabble with it if the outcome is worthwhile. Scouse (83)
192414 2003-11-18 00:25:00 Yes, Cygwin is a very darned useful command shell port.

Only grudge I have is that it takes so long to download even a relatively small amount of the packages (mainly because 'relatively small' isn't that small compared to the entire range of packages) on dial-up.

Still haven't figured out how to get Apache running in it either, let alone finding the manual for fetchmail :D
agent (30)
192415 2003-11-18 00:41:00 > Thanks Barnabas for that tip. It works in XP too, but also if del /s /q "C:\documents and settings\index.dat" is used to delete, then all three index.dat are deleted in the user profile, the extra switches in delete command are quite useful.

Yup that works. Now is there a command that can be used inside the cmd prompt to kill the explorer process?? I thought of 'net stop explorer.exe' but that obviously doesn't work. So if we can come up with a command that shuts down explorer, deletes all the index.dats and then restarts explorer we can put all that into a batch file.
PoWa (203)
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