Member Avatar for paxosspecial

Good evening/ morning. . . .

Am having problems displaying my Internet Explorer 6 History.

My history is set to 21 days and has been fine upto now. Been on the net 4 months. The other day started to not log any sited that I have visited By Date, Site, Most Visited etc....

Am running Windows XP, AVG-Antivirus, Adawarw, Spybot, I also use IE Privacy Keeper and clean up most cookies which I havn'e selected to keep.

Have reinstalled AVG and IE Privacy Keeper and all software has latest updates.

Any ideas?????????

Cheers Paxos,

It's easier to be nice than nastey.

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A short summary and concise troubleshooting checklist based on this thread: ’s problem was ultimately resolved after an Ad-aware error was fixed and a suspicious HijackThis entry was removed — that pattern (a privacy/cleanup tool or an indexed-cache corruption) is a common reason the IE History pane can appear empty even though browsing data still exists. and were correct to point toward malware/cleanup tools and full HJT logs when appropriate; ’s pointer to general troubleshooting resources is also relevant.

Why this happens (short): legacy Internet Explorer (IE6/XP era) keeps history/index information in hidden index.dat structures under the user profile; third‑party “privacy” or cleaner utilities often remove or zero those entries (or corrupt the cache), which can make the History view show nothing until the cache/index is rebuilt. The number-of-days setting is also stored in the registry (DaysToKeep) so the browser’s retention setting can be verified there. (thewindowsclub.com)

Quick, safe checklist (run these in order):

  • Exit/disable any privacy/cleanup tools (IE Privacy Keeper, Ad‑aware, CCleaner‑like apps) and reboot; those tools commonly clear index.dat or prevent writes. (thewindowsclub.com)
  • Verify the IE History setting in Internet Options (General → Browsing history → Settings) and confirm Days to keep is nonzero; the same value is kept at the registry key shown in Microsoft documentation. (support.microsoft.com)
  • Close all IE windows, back up the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\History, then delete that History folder (or use a trusted cleaner that explicitly deletes index.dat); reboot so Windows recreates a fresh index.dat and history folders. This often restores normal logging. (thewindowsclub.com)
  • Test with “Internet Explorer (No Add‑ons)” to rule out a toolbar/add‑on, and check NTFS permissions on the profile Local Settings folders to ensure the account can write history files.
  • If malware is suspected, collect the full HJT log and follow security‑forum procedures (as advised) rather than pasting partial logs here.

Notes and cautions: back up the History folder before deleting it if any recovery is desired. If these steps don’t restore the History view, repairing/reinstalling IE or running SFC (per XP-era Microsoft guidance) is the next step; and keep the machine scanned with up‑to‑date anti‑malware tools before trusting any downloaded recovery utilities. (support.microsoft.com)

Recommended Answers

All 11 Replies

Member Avatar for mikeandike22

well having your comp save up to 21 days in history is not good but if you want it and you think this is related to spyware then goto softpedia.com download hijackthis sav it to your hd and scan with it. When the scan finishes (should only take like 2-3 secs) then hit save log and post that log file in the security forum.

Member Avatar for paxosspecial

Thanks for the reply,

Did as you said is copied this from the Hijack This Log. . . am new to this kind of problem - had a few critical objects show up on adaware the other day. . .

C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG6\avgserv.exe
C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
C:\WINDOWS\zHotkey.exe
C:\PROGRA~1\Grisoft\AVG6\avgcc32.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\conimekr.exe
C:\Program Files\Free Surfer\fs20.exe
C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe
C:\WINDOWS\system32\ctfmon.exe
C:\Program Files\UnH Solutions\IE Privacy Keeper\IEPrivacyKeeper.exe
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Distillr\AcroTray.exe
C:\Program Files\BigFix\BigFix.exe
C:\Program Files\Belkin Corporation\Belkin Wireless Network Monitor Utility and Driver\RtlWake.exe
C:\Program Files\WinZip\WZQKPICK.EXE
C:\Documents and Settings\Christian\Desktop\HijackThis.exe


Cheers,
Paxos


well having your comp save up to 21 days in history is not good but if you want it and you think this is related to spyware then goto softpedia.com download hijackthis sav it to your hd and scan with it. When the scan finishes (should only take like 2-3 secs) then hit save log and post that log file in the security forum.

Member Avatar for TechPower

ry some other browsewr like fastbroswer :?:

Member Avatar for TechPower

key board short keys ctrl+h if history still not come than clear cookies and than try again.at last re-install the internet explorer again.

Member Avatar for DMR

Thanks for the reply,

Did as you said is copied this from the Hijack This Log. . .

A) HijackThis logs are only to be posted in our Security forum, as the announcement at the top of each forum's main page indicates

B) If you think that "unwanted guests" in your computer might be the culprit, you would need you to post the entire contents of your HJT log in order for us to see if you have any "nasties" in it. As I said though, you would need to start a new thread in the Security forum and post the log there.

Member Avatar for mikeandike22

yeah i believe i told you post in the security forum and all you posted was the running processes at the time of the scan no one can tell much from that.

Member Avatar for Homer2000

2 Paxos:

Did you get your problem with History in IE 6.0 solved?
Unfortunately I´ve got exactly the same problem few days ago.

Thanks for you help!

Member Avatar for paxosspecial

Good evening,

Thankyou all for your time and help.

Apologies for posting the Highjack log in the wrong place and not posting all of the log - as I mentioned am new to this kind of thing and a bit of a bonehead at the best of times.

Anyway, managed to get my history back after a couple of days - still not sure what the problem was exatley but found a critical error with the latest up to date Adaware software.

Also found a dodgey looking little entry in the Hijacklog which was I removed - can't remember what it was called but was a website in Korea.

Anyway - all's well with IE6. Hope yoyu get it sorted Homer2000

A sheepish
Paxosspecial

Is Mozilla Firefox the way to go I wonder????

Member Avatar for dlh6213

A lot of people use and like Firefox, but there are a few sites that it cannot access so if you do use it you should keep IE as a backup. In any case, it's free so go ahead and try it!
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Member Avatar for DMR

Yes- you'll definitely still need to use IE, if only for the fact that the Windows Update site won't work with any other browser.

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