Special Internet Explorer Desktop Icon

My son does use FireFox, but he also uses things like Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, QuickTime, and iTunes, and probably a few other things that I cannot think of now. Each one of these clutters the Temporary Internet Files cache with cookies and files even though IE7 is not being used.

He had a problem recently with his computer slowing down to a snail's pace and wondered why. He had not bothered to empty the Windows/Temp folder, the UserProfile/Temp folder, or the IE7 Temp files cache. Once we did that, it was working as faster again.

I am not trying to make things hard. It just is. My son wants an IE icon on his desktop-not the kind that you can just make, but the fully-functional kind like the one I have on mine. Thankyou for your idea about using the Internet Options icon from Control Panel. I have copied that to his desktop, and I hope he likes it. It should serve the purpose, since he is only using FireFox.

Nice little software to cleanup your son's system from time to time or even daily if you wish.

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

CCleaner is clean and simple without all the hassle.

Glenn

Pointless or NOT it does the cleanup simply and easily. It's well known cleanup is available in Windows... but some will not take the time to perform these functions. CCleaner just makes it easy if you need or want to complete the task.

Good luck and do not be discouraged by naysayers.

Glenn

but is it any better than the "Maintain Computer" that is built into McAfee Internet Security 2007 and Total Security? My point is why pay Ccleaner when I am already paying McAfee?

For one, I do believe CCleaner is free. So even if it is largely pointless, it's at least not expensive and pointless... Which is more than I can say for anything McAfee has produced in the last several years.

If your system is running slow, I'd be pointing the finger at McAfee Internet Security myself. McAfee VirusScan is horrendous. It alone can sap about 25-33% of your system's performance, just doing the normal on-access scanning. It is simply inexcusable in my book, and it's why I won't use it. Why pay McAfee for an experience I can get free from malware? That being a slow problematic system.

I also have a strong dislike for security "suites". I consider it a BAD idea to have all my security oriented software coming from a single vendor. That just makes it all the more likely that a domino effect will occur. Someone manages to compromise one of the programs in the suite, and then all the rest will fall one after another. I like having my firewall come from one source, my anti-virus come from another, any time I even so much as suspect there might be any malware on my system I'll download 2-3 different scanners for that. Variety is a good thing when it comes to security.

While on the subject, about the only thing worse than McAfee these days is Norton, so don't make the mistake of buying some Norton security suite. Issues with Norton products have been snowballing for several years now. McAfee has maintained a pretty consistent level of bad. Kind of a shame too... I now live within a couple miles of one of McAfee's office buildings, but somehow I doubt I could just walk in there some day and tell them how bad their products are, and have someone take me seriously.

Only made a suggestion... not to commence an argument. It's your computer... choose what meets your approval.

Happy computing!

Glenn

I'm a bit skeptical that it has anything to do with cache files.

Windows Media Player is another on the list of programs you should avoid. While it seems to have died down a bit, it's possible for people to embed scripts inside of video files which Windows Media Player will then be quite happy to execute. So far as I know, there's no way to disable this automatic execution of scripts, so if there's some kind of malicious code in the file... Media Player Classic Homecinema is an excellent replacement, as is VLC Player. Neither support embedded scripts in video files.

RealPlayer on Windows is full of spyware last I checked, so that's another one that should be chucked. Using Media Player Classic, you can download something called Real Alternative, which is just the Real Media codecs, which can be used with Media Player Classic. Same deal with QuickTime BTW with QuickTime Alternative. Not entirely sure how that would play with iTunes, but I tend to dislike iTunes with a passion, so I avoid it. Finally, QuickTime and iTunes, being Apple products, do not use Internet Explorer for anything. That would mean Apple would have to do a lot more work maintaining both their Mac and Windows versions of iTunes and QuickTime. No, they both use Apple's version of the KHTML rendering engine that is the foundation for their Safari web browser.

Anyway, cache files shouldn't have any affect on performance, unless your son's computer's hard drive is nearly full and those cache files are competing with the swap file for space. They're just static files, like the hundreds of other static files on the computer all the time. Unless they're loaded into memory, or possibly you neglected to disable the indexing service and it's getting bogged down in a large number of small files, they shouldn't have any affect on performance.

I honestly don't know where it is these silly myths get started, and how it is they persist when it only takes 5-10 seconds of thought, tops, to figure out it's complete and total nonsense.

Anyway, did you actually read the rest of my post? That you can create a shortcut of the control panel icon for the IE settings? There's also largely pointless programs like CCleaner. I say largely pointless because all they really do is automate functions that already exist in Windows. That, and it's primary reason for being is to clean up the mess Internet Explorer makes.

I DID read all of your post. I even thanked you for your suggestion. Read the last paragraph beginning with the . You will find that I wrote, "Thankyou for your idea about using the Internet Options icon from Control Panel. I have copied that to his desktop, and I hope he likes it. It should serve the purpose, since he is only using FireFox."

Thankyou again. I'll look into those other media players that you mentioned too. I didn't want to buy CCleaner either because after this incident, my son and I am going to change Internet Security programs because the one we were using let in a nasty virus that screwed up his computer badly, so we have decided to use McAfee and that has a cleaning system built in.

Sorry, guess I missed that part. But see the above comment about avoiding McAfee stuff like the plague, and avoiding Norton products like you would a leper.

Again, I apologize for missing that part of your previous message.

I DID read all of your post. I even thanked you for your suggestion. Read the last paragraph beginning with the . You will find that I wrote, "Thankyou for your idea about using the Internet Options icon from Control Panel. I have copied that to his desktop, and I hope he likes it. It should serve the purpose, since he is only using FireFox."

Thankyou again. I'll look into those other media players that you mentioned too. I didn't want to buy CCleaner either because after this incident, my son and I am going to change Internet Security programs because the one we were using let in a nasty virus that screwed up his computer badly, so we have decided to use McAfee and that has a cleaning system built in.

That is the easy way to create the kind of icon that I said I did not want to create. Click on Start, go all the way up and right-click on Internet Explorer. Now right-click on the kind of icon that you just told me to make. You SHOULD see the difference right there. If not, then on the one in the Start Menu, click on "Internet Properties" and on the one you told me to make on the Desktop, click on "Properties" and you WILL see the difference.

That is because on the start menu it shows the internet settings, if you go on all programs and click properties on that one the only difference is the "Start in" box, if you want the internet settings from a the desktop icon your going to have to open the internet and go on "Tools>Internet Options", Not sure if you can stop that or if you want to do it by editing the registry How-to-geek has a great guide Right here But I would rather just do it the simple way?

After a little messing about I found out that all you need to do it open the start menu and Click and drag the icon to the desktop, it stays on the start menu aswell and keeps the "Internet Properties" on te right click option aswell as all the other options.