Mysterious files and Web sites on dropdown list

[Max T.]

I have XP professional and when I use IE (version 6.0) or
Start/Run, I have found numerous Web addresses and file
names that I have no idea how they got there. These files
and addresses are not on my Favorites list and do not show
up in a cookies file, and they do NOT go away when I
delete cookies, history and/or files at the Tools/Internet
Options/General tab. I found them when I happened to be
using Explorer and started typing an address. After
typing the first couple of letters, a dropdown list
appeared with a number of files listed. Some are okay (I
recognized them from my Favorites or from specifically
allowed cookies), but several were files I had never seen
or used. I looked at the list of cookies in the cookies
file itself (I think I was looking in the right place
anyway) and found no references to the files that are
showing up on the dropdown list. I used "Search" to
search the entire disk (incl. hidden and system files) for
instances of those file names or instances of those
references IN a file. Nothing came up, and yet those file
references still show up in Explorer. Can anyone tell me
what's going on here? How could those files be on the
history if I have deleted the history and the cookies?
Where else can they be? It is a little unsettling to know
that files can seemingly persist without my having any
control over them!

thanks for any advice you might have,
Max

[Patrick Hallihan]

One more place to look (using regedt32):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs

Regards,
Patrick Hallihan
MCSE, MCDBA


"Max T." > wrote in message
...
> I have XP professional and when I use IE (version 6.0) or
> Start/Run, I have found numerous Web addresses and file
> names that I have no idea how they got there. These files
> and addresses are not on my Favorites list and do not show
> up in a cookies file, and they do NOT go away when I
> delete cookies, history and/or files at the Tools/Internet
> Options/General tab. I found them when I happened to be
> using Explorer and started typing an address. After
> typing the first couple of letters, a dropdown list
> appeared with a number of files listed. Some are okay (I
> recognized them from my Favorites or from specifically
> allowed cookies), but several were files I had never seen
> or used. I looked at the list of cookies in the cookies
> file itself (I think I was looking in the right place
> anyway) and found no references to the files that are
> showing up on the dropdown list. I used "Search" to
> search the entire disk (incl. hidden and system files) for
> instances of those file names or instances of those
> references IN a file. Nothing came up, and yet those file
> references still show up in Explorer. Can anyone tell me
> what's going on here? How could those files be on the
> history if I have deleted the history and the cookies?
> Where else can they be? It is a little unsettling to know
> that files can seemingly persist without my having any
> control over them!
>
> thanks for any advice you might have,
> Max

[Max T.]

Many thanks for the suggestion. I looked there as well
and could find no mention of the sites and files that are
showing up on the dropdown list. I did a search on the
entire registry and found none of them.

This is very peculiar. There must be some way of
searching an entire disk for instances of some file or
site reference. The search function in XP obviously
doesn't search everything.

If you have any other ideas, I welcome them. Thanks again!

Max


>-----Original Message-----
>One more place to look (using regedt32):
>
>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\TypedURLs
>
>Regards,
>Patrick Hallihan
>MCSE, MCDBA
>
>
>"Max T." > wrote in message
...
>> I have XP professional and when I use IE (version 6.0)
or
>> Start/Run, I have found numerous Web addresses and file
>> names that I have no idea how they got there. These
files
>> and addresses are not on my Favorites list and do not
show
>> up in a cookies file, and they do NOT go away when I
>> delete cookies, history and/or files at the
Tools/Internet
>> Options/General tab. I found them when I happened to be
>> using Explorer and started typing an address. After
>> typing the first couple of letters, a dropdown list
>> appeared with a number of files listed. Some are okay
(I
>> recognized them from my Favorites or from specifically
>> allowed cookies), but several were files I had never
seen
>> or used. I looked at the list of cookies in the cookies
>> file itself (I think I was looking in the right place
>> anyway) and found no references to the files that are
>> showing up on the dropdown list. I used "Search" to
>> search the entire disk (incl. hidden and system files)
for
>> instances of those file names or instances of those
>> references IN a file. Nothing came up, and yet those
file
>> references still show up in Explorer. Can anyone tell
me
>> what's going on here? How could those files be on the
>> history if I have deleted the history and the cookies?
>> Where else can they be? It is a little unsettling to
know
>> that files can seemingly persist without my having any
>> control over them!
>>
>> thanks for any advice you might have,
>> Max
>
>
>.
>