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.
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."