Cannot See all Temporary Internet Files - Disappearing?

For some reason I’m not able to see all of my temporary internet files when I open the folder : C:\Documents and Settings\USER NAME\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files

My cache is set for 200 mb, so I know that’s not the problem. I do not have IE6 set to dump all temporary internet files each time I close it. This problem suddenly came up, and I don’t think I installed anything to change my IE settings. I’m able to see the contents of the last few sites I visited, but that’s it. They’ll disappear after not too long. I no longer have a long list of temporary internet files when I check the folder like I used to.

Steps I’ve taken since noticing the problem – none of which have worked:

-Installed latest Windows Update files.
-Cleared all temporary internet files, including offline content and cookies. Couldn’t get rid of the index.dat file.
-Cleared history folder.
-Set cache down to 1 mb, restarted computer, set back to 200 mb, then browsed.
-I have the settings to show all hidden files and folders.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

You can use Spider116 to get rid of the urls in index.dat.
http://www.fsm.nl/ward/
This was written for Win9x,but can be used with XP by going to it's 'options' menu first off and put a tick in 'complete hard drive' then <accept>. Then click the spyglass to search. Then click the ambulance. There will be a check in 'url' by default,and you can also check history and cookies and TIF to get rid of those. Then <accept>. It will ask you to reboot,click 'ok'. You need to have running programs closed when you use this program...

Thanks for the suggestion about taking care of the index.dat problem. I will try that soon. But there's still the major issue here. Does anyone know what's up with my temporary internet files? Where are they going? Why can't I see/access them like I did in the past?

May sound silly, but in the TIF folder,have you tried going to the view menu and clicking 'refresh'?

Also, have you used the search function to see what it comes up with?

Check:

Start > Run > (type) %temp% > OK

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ridgerunr
May sound silly, but in the TIF folder,have you tried going to the view menu and clicking 'refresh'?

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That did not work. Files that should have been there, weren't.

Quote:

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Also, have you used the search function to see what it comes up with?

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I wrote down the names of a couple of files that were in my TIF folder, browsed some sites until they went missing (after around 10 different sites). I then used the search feature (searching my entire hard drive) to see where those couple of files went. The search results turned up empty. They have disappeared into the twilight zone :D .

Quote:

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Originally posted by DuaneB
Check:

Start > Run > (type) %temp% > OK

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That didn't do the trick.

Might give this a try. In IE,go to Tools>Internet Options>General tab>Temporary Internet files box. Settings button, tick 'automatically'. Move slider all the way to the right for maximum. Browse awhile. Go back to that box and click 'view files'. If you now see quite a few files, ok out and click 'delete files'. Go back and see if they're gone. If so,go back to the 'settings' box and set it down to 10MB's. Make sure the 'current location' is set to C:\Documents an Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. Even if it 'is',click on 'move folder'. Browse to the proper address(as above) and click the folder. It will tell you IE must close to make changes. Ok this and see if this helps...

OK, Ridgerunr. So far it looks like you have found the solution with those intstuctions. After I increased my cache to the max, all of the TIFs were being retained. I then cleared everything out, including cookies and history. I even cleared out all of the URLs from the index.dat file using that Spider program. I set the cache to 10mb.

When I went to "move" the TIF folder to be C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files it created a folder within Temporary Internet Files folder, so I ended up with C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Temporary Internet Files. So what I did after that was to try it again, this time "moving" it to C:\Documents and Settings\{user name}\Local Settings - sucessfully overwriting the old TIF folder.

The oldest TIFs were not disappearing until I reached near the 10mb capacity of the TIF folder (size on disk). I have now increased my cache back to 200 mb, and so far things are still going well.

Thanks for the help! Also, do you figure it was really just a matter of emptying out the cache, and re-creating (moving) the TIF folder? I'm guessing the instructions to increase the cache to the max, then down to 10mb was just to gauge things in the process. Correct?