Hi. I have Explorere 6.0.2, etc., running on Windows 2000. Every so
often I futilely tell Explorer to keep the history of sites visited
for many days (say, 20, which is what it's set at now). And, regularly
as clockwork, Explorer ignores that and deletes everything after 24
hours or so.
Any way I can tame this bad boy?

Thanks for asking!

First, in an Internet Explorer browser window, select the Tool tab in
the IE (top) Menu Bar.

Select Internet Options.

Select the Advanced Tab.

Scroll down to the Security Settings in the list, and -uncheck- the
box next to "Empty Temporary Internet Files Folder when browser is
closed".

Next, whenever you clear cache (on the General tab popup of Internet
Options), be sure to uncheck the box next to "Delete all offline
content". With this option checked, IE also empties the History
folder.

This should solve it for you. If not, please let me know, and we'll
figure out what more can be done.

---larre

---

Clarification of Answer by larre-ga on 05 Jul 2003 20:55 PDT

I'm sorry, I should define my terms a bit better. By "clear cache" I'm
referring to the middle box of the Tools > Internet Options > General
popup. IE labels the cache folder as Temporary Internet Files. Cache
is cleared by selecting the Delete Files button.

We're setting you up on a manual method of freeing up cache. It's
something you can do every day or so, or every session if you do a lot
of surfing. Clearing the Temporary Internet Files folder does not
affect History unless you have the "Delete all offline content" box
checked. If IE -keeps- deleting your History after changing these
settings, then perhaps the next step would be to increase the amount
of space allocated to temporary files.

To do so, on the General Tab, middle box (Temporary Internet Files),
select the right-most button labeled: Settings. On the settings
screen, move the slider for "Amount of Disk Space to Use" to the right
a notch or two, which will increase the space available for storage of
History and other Temporary Internet Files.

---l

To larre-ga: Thanks. I have some further points to note: 

1. Re: "Empty Temporary Internet Files Folder when browser is closed."
I did already have this UNchecked, so this could not be the decisive
point here.

2. Re: Allocating space--I had no idea this could even be done; I have
allocated more space, and I hope this may do the job.

3. Re: "Delete all offline content"--I'd never heard of this box.
Actually, it would have helped me if you'd clarified that the box only
appears on the screen which appears AFTER selecting "Delete [Temporary
Internet] Files." I'd never seen that screen, because I've never done
that Delete. (Since the system already has been deleting all my
history files constantly--that's my problem here, after all--I assumed
that it was in fact deleting all temporary internet files of any
kind.) Anyway, the box was unchecked, and still is.

I am hopeful that increasing the allocation of space will work. Still,
one final query: Since Microsoft organizes so many things so badly --
for instance, by making sure that the user can't consider these 3
related settings on one screen, where they obviously belong -- can you
tell me if there are any OTHER possible settings to check? You are
better on this point than Microsoft, in fact, so I'm assuming you've
covered everything involved. But please add a comment if there is
anything else to check.Thanks!

Yes, I've covered all the actual Microsoft/IE settings that will
normally affect history. There are some registry tweaks, too, but
unless you've been using a Windows tweaking program, this would be
very unlikely as a cause. Occasionally, however, other programs might
affect the browser in areas which seem to be completely unrelated.

For instance, if you use McAfee VirusScan 6 and your operating system
is Windows XP, there are settings that can possibly lead to automatic
erasure of History files. It appears to be a rare interaction,
however, there is a detailed explanation of the fix at:

Annoyances.org - XP Discussion Forum - History Disappears
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/r1029943153

and a follow-up by a second user with the same difficulties:

Annoyances.org - XP Discussion Forum - Re: History Disappears
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/r1033247589

In our Google Answers format, many computer troubleshooting fixes
follow a similar exhange of "try this", "didn't work", "okay, try
this."

I hope the additional information is useful.

Regards,

---larre

larre--
Yes, info was all helpful--thanks! And the Internet Explorer's history
file is now remaining! (It was the space allocation, then.)

Now I'm about to ask (for another teeny fee) if there's any way to
have that history actually become useful--by including the time of
access, rather than just date, and permitting the poor user to sort by
time and/or URL. I have a suspicion this is not possible, because
Microsoft wouldn't be that helpful... But you might watch for the
question if you wish.
bbb