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General discussion

How do I copy over Explorer's address bar history to new PC?

Apr 20, 2005 3:12AM PDT

I wanted to reconfigure a PC currently used by my wife who only uses it to surf the web. When I had her using a 2nd PC, she didn't like the fact that the IE address bar lost the history (of sites she usually visits)! Is there a way to copy over this history from one PC to the other?

Discussion is locked

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No. They are system registry entry.
Apr 20, 2005 10:28PM PDT

The two segments below is furnished for your reading only:


1. The article [Q322916] states that the Internet Explorer Index.dat file in the History folder increases IE's performance, may become very large over time, and is never resized or deleted. Clearing the history, by clicking the Clear History button on the "General tab" (image) in the Internet Options dialog box, does not change its size nor does setting the Days to keep pages in history value to 0 (zero) on the General tab.

2. Certain problems can generally occur if the History folders was perhaps deleted by using the DELTREE command at the command prompt at some time, or corruption has occurred otherwise. IE does automatically re-creates this folder at startup if it does not exist. However, the hidden Desktop.ini file that is necessary to display the files may not be re-created properly. To verify whether there is a problem with this file and present in the History folder, it must be checked from the MS-DOS prompt using the Dir command. If it is assumed that corruption has occured, then delete the History folder and restart IE to see if the automatic re-creation takes place properly.

Note: By default, the History folders is located inside the Windows folder. If user profiles are enabled on a computer for which Internet Explorer 4.0 or greater is installed, it is located in the Windows\Profiles\username\ folder (where "windows" is the folder in which Windows is installed and "username" is the name used to log onto Windows).

a. Click Start, Programs, MS-DOS Prompt and change to the folder named History.

b. Type dir and then press Enter. You must see as a minimum one file labeled "Desktop.INI" and perhaps a folder labeled, "History IE5".

c. If you note anything besides these two, at the command prompt type deltree *.* and then press Enter. When asked whether you want to delete the line listed be positive that you do not delete either the file named, "Desktop.INI" or the folder titled, "History IE5". It is required to respond with either a n for "NO" or y for "YES", and then press Enter.

d. After deleting anything else and you see the file named "Desktop.INI"" listed, type edit desktop.ini at the command prompt, and then press Enter. The file content should be observe as -- never seen one with anything but:

[.ShellClassInfo] UICLSID={7BD29E00-76C1-11CF-9DD0-00A0C9034933}
CLSID={FF393560-C2A7-11CF-BFF4-444553540000}


e. Click File, Exit on the Main menu.

Note: The text information from the example above can be copied, pasted into any text editor and saved to the respective folder with the name "Desktop.ini" to recreate it if that file is observed as corrupted or it is missing.

f. Type exit at the MS-DOS prompt and press Enter to return to Windows.

2. Supplemental reading: "How to Clear the History Entries in Internet Explorer (Q157729)" - the cached History (or Address box) entries.

Note:: "EditURLs" is a good simple utility for this situation and allow you to test for fifteen non-contigous (15) days in its Fully-functional mode which then must be registered ($19.95) for use.

3. On the Paranoia tab of the "PowerToys TweakUI" utility is an option to Clear Internet Explorer history at logon which states, "Check the Clear Internet Explorer history at logon box to cause the Internet Explorer URL history to be erased each time you log on. This is a per-user setting."

* * * *

1. The best I can give you is individual deletion in the TypedURLs depicted in the browser dropdown list for MSIE v5.x, is to edit the Registry and delete any one or more from the key address:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs

2. In addition, you can prepare an INF file which when installed it will remove that registry key in it's entirety. The MSIE browser must be shutdown and reopened before URLs disappear.

[Version]
Signature=$Chicago$

[DefaultInstall]
RequiredEngine=SetupAPI,"Fatal Error - Missing SETUPAPI.DLL"
DelReg=TypedURLs

[TypedURLs]
HKCU,"Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs"


Note: There are nine lines including blank lines. The file must be saved with an .INF extension, right-click the file and select Install from the resulting menu.

3. If you're talking about individual History items..

a. On the toolbar, click the History button and the History frame appears - containing links for Web sites and pages visited previously.

b. In the History bar, click a week or day, click a Web site folder to display individual pages, and then click the page icon to display the Web page.

? To sort or search the History bar, click the arrow next to the View button at the top of the History bar.

? To delete an item from the Histroy list, right-click the link and select delete. Or, click the item, press the Del key on the keypad, either click yes or press ENTER.

c. You hide the History bar by clicking the History button again or the little x in the frame - TLHC (top left hand corner).

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(NT) (NT) Thanks for the info.
Apr 23, 2005 2:32AM PDT