History = index.dat + ???

[Karl Marksred]

It seems that individual web pages visited (specific URLs) are stored in
index.dat (in the windows/history folder), but the organizational
information is stored somewhere else. If you replace index.dat with a dummy,
you get a perfectly organized cartridge of blanks (date & domain & number of
pages, but no actual pages). If you reformat, having previously backed-up
index.dat, then restore it, you get nada (IE won't read it, apparently,
without the, uh, meta-index).

Anyway, where the hell is this other information stored?

Thanks,
Karl

[Tom C. Koch]

A shortcut to each page you visit is stored in the History folder. When a
shortcut is added to the folder, an entry is made in index.dat to tell IE
where the shortcut is. The shortcut itself is not stored in index.dat, only
a reference to the shortcut. Every time Windows starts, the contents of the
History folder are scanned and checked against index.dat. If there are no
shortcuts in History, then all the entries in index.dat are marked as
deleted. The entry itself remains in index.dat, but will be overwritten as
required (similar to deleting files in DOS: only the first character is
deleted and a flag is set, although the contents of the file actually
remains on the disk). So if you reformat, and thereby delete all the
shortcuts, then restore the index.dat, IE tries to find the shortcut, sees
it does not exist any longer, and so marks the entry in index.dat as
"deleted". The same process is at work in Temporary Internet Files and
Cookies, both of which contain their own index.dat.

--
Please reply to the group. Thanks.

Tom Koch
Microsoft MVP-IE4
Chi...@direct.a2000.nl
Awareness is free.

Karl Marksred <pa...@munist.com> wrote in message
#cPsQCfk...@uppssnewspub04.moswest.msn.net...