Weird registry entry: Internet Settings\Cache\Preload

[Dexahol]

I just did a fresh hard drive/Win98SE install, and was looking through the registry at some of the default settings. I ran across an unusual entry. Its under:
[HKEY_USERS\<user-name>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Cache\Preload]

Which contains a long list of websites in this format - here's a sample:

"http://channel.web.aol.com/preview.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\aol.cdf"
"http://warnerbros.entertaindom.com/cdf/wb.cgi"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\wbros.cdf"
"http://ie4cdf.pointcast.net/ie40/cdf/ie40cdf.dll"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\pcn.cdf"
"http://www.disneyblast.com/ActiveDesktop/disney.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\disny.cdf"
"http://www.msnbc.com/tools/channel/msnbc-cdf.asp"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\msnbc.cdf"
"http://ie.msn.com/us/channel/msn.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\msn.cdf"
"http://expedia.com/IEChannel/content/default.asp"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\exped.cdf"
"http://travel.epicurious.com/channel/intro.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\epicu.cdf"
"http://channel.parentsoup.com/cdf/parentsoup.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\ivill.cdf"
"http://www.nationalgeographic.com/connection/join/connection.cdf"="file://C:\\WINDOWS\\web\\ngc.cdf"

What in the world might this be? This is a fresh install, so they must be loaded by the Windows install disk. Odd.

Dex

Almost forgot . . . can I just delete this key? Thanks all.

[Steve R Jones]

Looks like the default list of favorites that come with IE.

When in doubt, leave em alone.

[Train]

You will find them in Favorites / links folder.
Forget about them.

[Dexahol]

Thanks guys, but thats actually not correct. My "Favorites>Links" has my own URL's in it. Also, note that those point to files on the C drive. Kinda like "about:blank" type of thing.

For example, look at this one from my actual registry:

"http://live.wired.com/wired.cdf" = "file://C:\WINDOWS\web\wired.cdf"

If I manually place "http://live.wired.com/wired.cdf" into my browser, I get a "page not found" from "http://hotwired.lycos.com/wired.cdf"

If I put "file://C:\WINDOWS\web\wired.cdf" in, I get a Hotwired web page. But I notice something, as I'm typing in the "file:// . . ." part, autocomplete is supplying all those url's in the preload cache.

Weird.

Dex

[Dexahol]

Ok, I deleted that registry key and the entire C:\Windows\web\folder and rebooted. Doesn't seem to be a problem. From poking around a bit, it appears that that may have had something to do with using an "active" desktop, which I never do. If my computer crashes later . . . I'll let you know.

Dex

[Train]

lycos.com

Maybe tied into that business.

Let us know if things go belly up.