What I have found is that on XP, IE5 seems to be hidden & not able to be found to delete. And that app seems to collect & retain this kind of info forever.

When I say forever I mean files dating back to 2002 – at least on XP machines.

Index.dat app removes data files that retain too much info as well as your passwords & history (backups) so when you run various system / registry cleaners usually these are not removed – just check mark the appropriate boxes for each app before running those cleaners as some are more aggressive.

I run Index.dat before any cleaners.

Back to IE5, I have found a program I consider GOLD… and inexpensive – $15. It cleans hundreds of megs of files retained. See GarbageFinder at http://www.alsedi.com/garbagefinder.php
I believe Internet Explorer 5 was retained intentionally by M$ just for this purpose. With all the IE updates – people tent to forget or otherwise unaware it remains in your pc.

Ever update say IE6 to IE7, or IE8 and even with or without cleaning history & junk files, and find your history is still there? Digging deep enough will find very old history & I have done this repairing pc’s for others – not intentionally but just proves what I believe. Windows is spyware….

I have posted elsewhere & been called various names like moron…so what. And some techs report people for having looked at child porn when possibly they never did – anyone ever bought a used pc? I don’t report anything because of the above.

Ever had pop-ups in the middle of reading on a supposidly safe site? Child porn and more – I have & I’m sure M$ stores this info.

If you decide to run GarbageFinder – strongly recommended, you will have the option to clean or not. Run this just to see a disgusting amount of hidden data on your pc. Restore first and careful with the files marked in RED. Your pc could become unstable or non-bootable – but clean if done right. F8 on boot to recover to last know good configuration.

Also, why does it take M$ so long to scan the I386 folder for system updates? Yeah..right, they wouldn’t be looking at anything else. Check their update site to review your previous updates history on file.

While I’m gripping, M$ has a data retention in the registry – see; HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains

every gamblimg & sex site & who knows what is identified – did someone visit there? Would M$ scan this as well…….

Raymond, please review GarbageFinder for your subcribers – it will be a true gift. And I would like to know how to totally delete IE5 & it’s retention ability.

Ken

Just as an additional info I would like to say that the machine translated version of your webpage (the /fi/ version) is totally screwed up. It makse absolutely no sense what so ever. It is funny though, maybe that is your point. I am native finnish, I know. ;-)

It came up with Google (logic) and led to your page. Luckily it did not take a rocket scientist to alter the addressline to display the english version.

Keep up the good work and have a nice day.

I know M/S Word certainly used name information gathered during the windows setup process.

Even if this is not the case, there is very little way this information could be abused, provided your computer is spyware free anyway.