Deleting history files
is easy as many existing programs perform, but this program will retrieve lost
information that still exists in your history folder or select the period during
that history is displayed. You can do all operations performed by the History
Inspector also "by hand" if you know how, but it is much more comfortable
to let it be done by the program. It can save you hours of typing work if there
are many weeks of history stored already. There is no other program available
now that can do it!
In contrast to a widely held belief, Internet Explorer ® does not
decrease speed if the history folder and its data files are growing very large.
These files are only examined at start-up of the system and then are resting
quietly during your browsing session. The browser works only on the file for
the current day. If you want to open history of a week, let say, one year ago,
only this folder must be opened and the index file (about 100 KB) of this
folder read in. Therefore, it does not matter, how long the list of weeks in
your history will grow. It is only uncomfortable for you, to manage a very long
list if you only need sites visited during the last month or so. On the other
hand, deleting the old data will bear the risk that you urgently need this information
sometimes. This is the reason History Inspector has been developed.
History Inspector enables you to hide all part of history you do not need at the moment, but as data is only hidden it can be selected easily for display again. It will take only a few minutes to select the required period, restart the browser and have access to all the data as long as these files had not been deleted meanwhile. It is even possible to use history in different history folders on one machine, although this was not intended probably by the designers of Internet Explorer ®, but this browser and its system environment (DLLs) have been designed very versatile to provide more kinds of handling than only the standard one. However, history folder has been implemented as a system folder in Windows ® 95 and it cannot be managed easily by the "normal" user as access is heavily restricted. This protects against erroneous actions damaging data files.
You can use selection of period to hide certain information about sites visited from other persons. In this case, however, you must hide History Inspector also.
Furthermore, in some cases a certain entry in the Registry (Windows ®
95 system data) can be lost, which is mandatory for display of history information.
In this case, only history of the current day and the subsequent time will be
displayed, but Megabytes of information are still stored on the machine. History
Inspector can rebuild this Registry key according to the contents in the history
folder. This will bring back valuable lost information if the files themselves
had not been damaged or deleted. However, there is an important restriction:
The titles of the web pages are taken from a larger index file located directly
in the history folder. This file contains all addresses and page titles for
the complete history (all the weeks) and the dates of the most recent visits.
If this file is incomplete or had been replaced sometimes by an empty file,
only the addresses (URLs) will be shown without titles. In Internet Explorer
® when opening a week's history and a certain domain therein, you will see
only a column of URL symbols without text. In this case, the URL is still working
as a link, but the hover function showing the address when the mouse cursor
is placed over the link is disabled. History Inspector cannot restore
this index file.
Operating History Inspector is very simple: only follow the built-in user guide. It is not required to read additional instructions or help files. For a detailed description refer to the operating instructions below.
Internet Explorer ® 4, 5 or 6 (all versions thereof), Windows ® 95, 98 or ME.
Note: In Windows® ME the history path and name cannot be changed. This is blocked in the operating system by system file protection measures!
For Windows 2000 use version 5.0.5, file name HIE5_2000.exe.
Under Windows ® ME and later, history folders that are not listed in the Registry can be deleted automatically. Therefore, caution must be exercised if selective view of history is wanted only temporarily. Always make a backup of the complete history folder before using the History Inspector. The weekly folders that are excluded and removed from the Extensible Cache key in Registry by this program can be deleted from the history folder automatically by Windows ®. If the complete history must be restored later, only the backup can provide these folders again.
Note: The following section has been changed for version 5.0.3.
The task of this program is to find all weekly or daily history folders in a history directory and to change the Extensible Cache key in Registry according to the user's requirements.
Upon start-up History Inspector will determine the Browser version and locate the path of History folder in Registry. This path is displayed in the main program window in the edit box labeled 'Selected path', as shown in the screenshot.
The boxes 'Drive', ' Files and folders' and 'Directory' can be used to change to other history folders if they exist on the system.
In the window labeled 'Available history folders' only all weekly or daily history folders having the special designations required by Internet Explorer ® history format that are found in the selected folder are displayed. If your history folder is not shown in the directory box double click on the parent directory and locate the history folder in the Files and folders box. Double clicking or pressing Enter on any folder there will open it in the Directory box and show its contents in the Files and folders box. Alternatively you can open any folder by typing the exact path in the edit box labeled 'Selected path:' and double clicking there.
If the selected folder contains weekly or daily history folders, they will be shown in the box 'Available history folders'.
If such folders are found, you can press the button 'Confirm path' to open
the next window that will ask for your choice:
1) Make all folders available for display in Internet Explorer ®
2) Make only folders within a certain period visible (you can specify this period in the next window easily)
3) See only the listing and do not make any change on your computer.
You may want to compare the number of folders displayed in the right window
to the number of weeks or days in Internet Explorer ®. One folder corresponds
to one week respectively one day of the last incomplete week. If the number
in Internet Explorer ® is less than the number in History Inspector, probably
your Registry has been damaged as display of folders in Internet Explorer ®
requires correct data in Extensible Cache Registry
key. History Inspector can restore this key automatically according to the stored
history folders. You just select 'All' and another window will open and show
you the changes made to your Registry. If a value for an existing subkey is
written to the Registry this key is not duplicated, but only the new values
for this key are written over the old ones. If you add entries by repeating
the procedure or selecting additional history folders (as mentioned above) the
later values will survive but equal entries will not become multiple subkeys
although listed so in the window of History Inspector.
If you want to decrease the number of weeks displayed you can choose 'Selection'. Before deleting the Registry key, an additional dialog 'Update Registry key?' asks you whether you want to delete and rebuild (answer YES) or only add (answer NO) entries in Registry. The option add only can be used to combine weeks or days from different history folders (see below).
If you specify any period you want in the next window 'Time limits', History Inspector will make only the entries corresponding to your selection. All the weeks or days falling within the date limits specified by you will be selected. Criterion for the selection is always the start day of the week. The date values entered for year, month and day must be valid numbers. For example, a day value of 32 will result in an error message.
After changing the Registry key it is normally required to restart the browser before the change will take effect. If the number of weeks have been decreased in the Registry, only those weeks will be shown for which there are subkeys written in the Registry, regardless how many weekly folders stay stored in the History folder. This is the way, History Inspector controls selective display without deleting data files.
If any new entries to Registry have been made, they will be listed in the next window: 'Registry'. This window has to buttons: Add and Close. If you select Add the main window is shown to let you make additional entries. Press 'Confirm path' and repeat the procedure. All entries added are shown in the window: 'Registry' in the order of making.
If you select close, the former listing is destroyed, but not the Registry entries.
The 'Confirm path' button can be used always to invoke the dialog box 'History folders detected' as long as the main window is shown.
In Internet Explorer 5 the paths to the history folder and the registry keys have been changed. Therefore, a new version (5.0.x) of History Inspector has been developed. It can be used for both IE 4 and IE 5. Your browser version is detected and indicated automatically upon start. However, you may select any version by double clicking on the check box. This change will take effect immediately. This feature enables, for example, inspecting old history folders of IE 4 when IE 5 is already installed.
On principle, IE 4 and 5 are using the same history folder path, e.g.,
C:\Windows\History.
But in IE 5 an additional sub-folder History.IE5 (extension = IE5) is created. When you change the browser version selection in History Inspector, the correct folder will be selected and shown immediately.
This can be used, e.g., to add IE 4 history to IE 5.
For this, restoring the Extensible Cache Registry key for IE 4 and then activating the automatic repair function of IE 5 will allow you to generate a combined history index.dat file of the content of IE 4 and IE 5 history.
Note: In Windows® ME the history path and name cannot be changed. This is blocked in the operating system by system file protection measures!
Button 'Change History' enables to enter a new folder name or path that is written into the appropriate Registry key to change history folder immediately to a new (or elder) location. The old history is not deleted by this action. In this way, creating a new history and keeping the old as backup is a matter of seconds!
For more information refer to History Reader homepage.
The following example will show you how you can select one week in another History folder and add it to the list of weeks displayed in Internet Explorer®.
It is important to know that this selection works not only if the week wanted is contained in the current History folder but also in other (backup) History folders. As Extensible Cache key contains in the value path the complete path to the weekly folder Internet Explorer® takes the information for this week from folder History01 (example) from the weekly folder as well as from the global index.dat file in this folder.
Version: 1.00 Beta as of 10/28/1998
Version: 1.02 Beta as of 02/25/1999
Version: 5.00 as of 07/24/1999
Version: 5.0.1 as of 11/13/1999
Version: 5.0.2 as of 02/12/2000
Version: 5.0.3 as of 03/08/2000
Version: 5.0.4 as of 08/25/00
Version: 5.0.4.2 as of 07/11/01
Version: 5.0.4.3 as of 02/09/02
Version: 5.0.4.4 as of 03/26/02
Version: 5.0.5 as of 04/10/01
Version: 5.0.5.1 as of 02/09/02
Version: 5.0.5.2 as of 03/26/02
Version: 5.0.6.0 as of 04/04/9
Version: 5.0.7.0 as of 04/04/9
Author's note: All bug reports and suggestions will be appreciated
as a valuable aid in improvement of this software (e-mail).
Back to Homepage Wolfgang Baudisch
Windows ® 95 and Internet Explorer ® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, USA.
Date of publishing: October 28, 1998.
Last revision: 2004/04/10.