Refreshing IE's INDEX.DAT

[Sin Jeong-hun]

As we use Internet Explorer for some while, the 'Temporary Internet
Files' gets many 'temporary' files in it. Today, I tried to defrag my C
drive and found that almost all 'most fragmented files' were in that
folder. I tried to remove them by selecting 'Delete files' in the
'Internet Options'

First question>> Why doing 'Delete files' can't actully delete all the
files in the temporary internet files folder? Of course I wasn't
running any programs including the Internet Explorer.

Anyways, I tried to manually delete all the files using some
third-party shell program. Every files were deleted except the
Index.dat, whose size is over 5MB. I think this files is where IE saves
the relations between cached files and actual adresses. I pressed
'Delete files' again in the Internet Options, but the size of this file
never got smaller. I tried to delete it after rebooting, but it didn't
work. I had to move the location of temporary internet files, then this
file is recreated with its default size under 100KB.

Second question>> Why doing 'Delete files (including offline contents)'
can't set INDEX.DAT to its default state? Doesn't it slow down Internet
Explorer when its size gets abnormaly large?

 

[Unk]

As we use Internet Explorer for some while, the 'Temporary Internet
Files' gets many 'temporary' files in it. Today, I tried to defrag my C
drive and found that almost all 'most fragmented files' were in that
folder. I tried to remove them by selecting 'Delete files' in the
'Internet Options'

First question>> Why doing 'Delete files' can't actully delete all the
files in the temporary internet files folder? Of course I wasn't
running any programs including the Internet Explorer.

Anyways, I tried to manually delete all the files using some
third-party shell program. Every files were deleted except the
Index.dat, whose size is over 5MB. I think this files is where IE saves
the relations between cached files and actual adresses. I pressed
'Delete files' again in the Internet Options, but the size of this file
never got smaller. I tried to delete it after rebooting, but it didn't
work. I had to move the location of temporary internet files, then this
file is recreated with its default size under 100KB.

Second question>> Why doing 'Delete files (including offline contents)'
can't set INDEX.DAT to its default state? Doesn't it slow down Internet
Explorer when its size gets abnormaly large?

Try Unlocker (Freeware)
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

 

[MAP]

As we use Internet Explorer for some while, the 'Temporary Internet
Files' gets many 'temporary' files in it. Today, I tried to defrag my
C drive and found that almost all 'most fragmented files' were in that
folder. I tried to remove them by selecting 'Delete files' in the
'Internet Options'

First question>> Why doing 'Delete files' can't actully delete all the
files in the temporary internet files folder? Of course I wasn't
running any programs including the Internet Explorer.

Anyways, I tried to manually delete all the files using some
third-party shell program. Every files were deleted except the
Index.dat, whose size is over 5MB. I think this files is where IE
saves the relations between cached files and actual adresses. I
pressed 'Delete files' again in the Internet Options, but the size of
this file never got smaller. I tried to delete it after rebooting,
but it didn't work. I had to move the location of temporary internet
files, then this file is recreated with its default size under 100KB.

Second question>> Why doing 'Delete files (including offline
contents)' can't set INDEX.DAT to its default state? Doesn't it slow
down Internet Explorer when its size gets abnormaly large?

Index.dat cannot be deleted while your in the same account your are trying
to delete, you must log on to another account and navigate to the file you
wish to delete. A royal pain in the A$$, so instead I use the free program.
http://ccleaner.com/

 

[frodo]

AOL IM uses the IE Cache directory to store its stuff. When you ask IE to
flush the cache it won't touch thoses file. Thanks AOL! I suspect some
other 3rd party stuff might do this too.

Also, IE won't delete the index.dat file, it just resets it, keeping the
file on disk. It does this assuming that it has grown to an appropriate
size and it should just keep it that way, to avoid having to "grow" it
anymore in the future.

the easiest way to completely wipe the cache is to log in as administrator
and then just go into \Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings

[turn on Folder Options | Show Hidden Files and Folders]

toss the Temporary Internet Files folder into the trash - then empty the
trash. when the user logs in again it'll recreate a new fresh folder,
complete w/ new, small, index.dat

you can toss the History folder too if you want to loose those; it acts
the same way, letting index.dat get large.