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General discussion

IE6 Favorites Disappear on reboot

May 4, 2005 3:37AM PDT

Hi,

I'm running XP Pro SP2 installed, IE6 6.0.2900 all fixes applied, McAfee Security Center. I run Spy Bot S&D, adaware & spysweeper. Suddenly my IE6 Favorites list disappears after a reboot(all favorites gone from list), any idea what could cause this or what to try to resolve this?

Thanks,
Steve

Discussion is locked

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Re: Favorites disappear at boot
May 6, 2005 1:27AM PDT

Favorites are just shortcuts in normal Windows folders. Mine are in c:\windows\favorites (which is more or less amazing, because I expected them somewhere in c:\windows\profiles (it's Windows 95 and IE5.5, but I don't think the principle in XP is different).

Start with making all these shortcuts read-only (select them all in Explorer, right click and check read-only). That should keep them on the disk, whatever happens. That's simple to try.

Then make a copy of the folder, and set them deletable again in the original to find out what is causing the delete. Do a clean boot as described in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353/ or go to the Startup tab of MSCONFIG to find out (by unchecking and rechecking what program does it. Then see if you can explain things.

Good searching!


Kees

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Working on this "Clean Boot" solution
May 6, 2005 7:04AM PDT

Hi Kees,

Thanks you've offered me a good way to figure this problem out & I appreciate it. I made all my entires on my favorites list "Read-Only" and like you said they are NOT getting removed now on reboot. I could be LAZY and stop there, but I want to find out what or who the culprit is so I can report back here & possibly help others.

I copied the folder out & made the originals back the way they were (ie NOT "Read-Only"), I'm slowing going thru the clean-boot, picking out first things that seem suspicious or unknown to me first, then everything else, it's a slow process(IE favorites gone, copy them back in & start again) will report back soon on my findings.

Thanks to all who replied

Steve

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Reply for IE6
May 6, 2005 1:29AM PDT

I run Win ME and had some of the same things happening to me, what I finally had to do was to er-install just the SYSTEM set over again and go through the downloads of the upgrades one by one and make sure they don't interfer with your version of IE6. Best I can do for ya right now!
Andy6319

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Disappearing favorites in windows XP
May 6, 2005 4:55AM PDT

I am just thinking, you have te reserve some diskspace for your favorites. If the space reserved is zero, the system cannot keep your favorites anywhere.
Just check, it might be the case

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Re: saving favorites
May 7, 2005 9:57PM PDT

Such a shortcut is 1 kB, which amounts to one 4 kB block on NTFS.
If that's a problem, other problems will arise with virtual memory (unless that's fixed), Temporary Internet files (unless that's max already) and, especially, spool space when printing and working with Word (which makes a copy under certain circumstances).

Kees

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IE6 Favorites Disappearing Act
Feb 19, 2008 5:46AM PST

I had the same problem after upgrading\migrating to another laptop. After installing Webroot AntiSpyware I realized I forgot to move my Favorites over to the new system and that's when my Favorites started disappearing. I uninstalled Webroot, recopied my Favorites and now they are there, no more disappearing act.