Really cleaning IE

October 28, 2005 7:23 AM

Clearing the drop-downish menu that appears when trying to set IE homepage?

A co-worker has been viewing some inappropriate adult-related websites. I've managed to fix just about everything, but I can't seem to shake this problem.

Tools -> Internet Options -> General -> Home Page -> Address--- When I type in a "w", for example, a list of 100+ sites emerges. I want to make them disappear. I've deleted cookies, files, cleared history, etc.

In case it matters, I have finally rid his machine of VX2 and its variants with CWShredder and Lavasoft VX2 add-in.

This really is for a friend, but you can disbelieve and mock if you wish.

posted by Kwantsar to computers & internet (11 comments total)

i was pretty sure this was covered either by flushing the cache (internet settings somewhere) or by deleting the browsing history (file explorer). have you tried both those with the browser closed?
posted by andrew cooke at 7:26 AM on October 28, 2005

Don't forget to clear history, delete cookies, delete files
When all else fails it might not be a bad idea to try to reinstall IE from the microsoft webpage as well to help try to clear that off.
posted by Numenorian at 7:34 AM on October 28, 2005

Per andrew's advice, I have flushed the cache with the browser closed. This did not work. I also looked for the browsing history folder or file and was unable to pinpoint it. Can I delete any folder named "History.IE5" with impunity?
posted by Kwantsar at 7:40 AM on October 28, 2005

sorry, i wasn't clear. on win2k in the explorer, go to C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\History and right click to select "delete" for each object that appears there. don't know if xp is similar.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:47 AM on October 28, 2005

Tools>Options>Content>AutoComplete>Uncheck all items, then Clear Forms
posted by Serena at 8:03 AM on October 28, 2005

Serena, that didn't work.

andrew, I think that found the equivalent folder(s), but deleting the histories was ineffective.

Numenorian, one cannot simply reinstall IE.

Thanks everyone, so far.
posted by Kwantsar at 8:10 AM on October 28, 2005

This might help: Microsoft's really hidden files.

There are folders on your computer that Microsoft has tried hard to keep secret. Within these folders you will find two major things: Microsoft Internet Explorer has not been clearing your browsing history after you have instructed it to do so, and Microsoft's Outlook Express has not been deleting your e-mail correspondence after you've erased them from your Deleted Items bin. (This also includes all incoming and outgoing file attachments.) And believe me, that's not even the half of it.

Haven't tested it out yet, but I suspect it will clear up your pesky address box problem.
posted by RKB at 8:10 AM on October 28, 2005

Try Crap Cleaner. It's a great little program for clearing out those annoying hidden caches and temp files.
posted by monkeyman at 8:37 AM on October 28, 2005

Here's a Usenet thread started by a fellow with the same problem. Post #15 has the fix that worked for him.
posted by nikzhowz at 8:54 AM on October 28, 2005

Numenorian, one cannot simply reinstall IE.

I'm curious to know what you meant by that.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 1:04 AM on October 29, 2005

RKB's post is right-on. The thing is, you need to close both IE and the Windows file manager (iexplore.exe *and* explore.exe) before you can delete the pesky Content.IE5 folder and the evil index.dat that lies beneath it.

I've done this before; basically, you run a CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to the Task Manager, kill those two processes, then do a File > New Task > cmd and delete the files from the command line. If I recall, you have to do the deletes quick, because explore.exe respawns itself...and if you're using NT/2000/XP, "deltree" isn't supported, so deleting all of the hidden folders (which don't show up with "dir," at least not for me, but Cygwin's ls does the trick and rm -rf is a dream) is arduous (without Cygwin's rm, that is...).

I think though, just deleting index.dat will get rid of the drop-downs, though it's interesting to go into those hidden file folders to see what's been saved...;)
posted by jenh at 6:18 AM on October 29, 2005