Hi guys.

This just in from the "I know this is something simple but I'm d****d if I can figure it out" department:

WinXP Professional
IE 6.0.2800

When I open the History pane on the left of the IE window, it lists all the documents, pictures, emails etc that I have recently opened in addition to the web addresses.

How can I prevent this? It makes the history list s-o-o-o l-o-n-g-g-g.

Tanx.

Take a look in the

C:\Documents and Settings\(current logon)\Local Settings\History

Folder. It should say:
Two weeks ago
Last week
Today

If it has anything else in there, that may be where the problem is.

Dwight

Another option other than Dwight`s advice you can do as follows:

To specify the number of days that the History list keeps track of your pages
In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.
Click the General tab.
Under History, change the number of days that the History list keeps track of your pages.

To empty the History folder, click Clear History. This will temporarily free up disk space on your computer.

Thanks guys, but that's not what I meant. This screen shot might make it clearer. I created three little files: one in notepad, one in Excel and one jpg screen shot about this problem. IE was not even open when I created the "twenty.txt" file and the "this is just nuts.xls" file. When I opened up Internet Explorer again and opened the History pane, (maybe that should be "pain") there are all three files in with the recent web pages I visited.



Any ideas why they're in there at all?

My History is set to 7 days and I just dumped the cache this morning. I also followed your directions, Dwight, and all it shows is "Today".

When I click the Today folder, it includes a "My Computer" folder and, when I click that, it lists those text and Excel files I created.

How can I make it so it doesn't include regular documents in the History folder?

I've gone through IE Tools > Options > Advanced and couldn't find anything about it, then I went into My Computer > Tools > Folder Options and looked through there, too.

I don't know where else to look. Thanks for any help.

It looks like it is including the "Most Recently Used" list along with the History. You can clear the MRU list in the Taskbar and Start menu.

In the "classic" view, click Start/Documents

The list that is displayed is a part of the Most Recently Used list.

Click: Start/Settings/Taskbar and Start menu.

Click the Start Menu tab. Note the "Clear" button. This button clears the "URL Address List" created by the AutoComplete function in I.E. as well as several other MRU lists.

I don't know where it might be, but I'd guess that somewhere in the Documents and Settings folders, these MRU lists are getting mixed with the History folder. I don't know of a setting for this.

I have to run now, but if you haven't found it when I return, I'll look some more for this. I did find two Registry entry's in Windows XP that show MRU's:

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-4244491445-1014756669-2998132755-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSaveMRU\*

HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-4244491445-1014756669-2998132755-1005\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSaveMRU\art

Dwight

Give this a try:



Change the View drop down selection box to either "By Date" or "By Site" and see if that makes any difference.

Dwight