IE 6 Address Bar

After months of searching, and good suggestions from Windows BBS, and Microsoft FAQ's, I still can't figure out why the address bar history in IE 6 is not present from one session to another. While IE 6 is open, all typed URL's in the address bar history are present, but once closed and re-opened the history is lost.

Does anyone know what windows file stores this information? I suspect it is being deleted or the contents erased between sessions.

Windows XP home OS

 

Thanks Steve

I suspected Ace Utilities, but their help people are not of any assistance. I don't know of any other tweeking utilities I have used before noticing this problem, but will look in that direction.

 

They're stored in the registry in this key.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs

Have a look at the key and see if there's any entries in it. If you should happen to not have the key, create it and then see if it works for you. If you try typing one in IE you won't see an entry for it in the registry until you close IE.

 

Zander

Before Closing IE, I looked in the registry and found that the key was there. It had 4 values; a default with no value. and 3 others with names URL1..2..and 3 showing sites I had visited earlier in this session. (I didn't think to write them down)
I closed Registry Editor and IE. Opened Registry Editor and there was the default with no value and URL3 with http://www.microsoft.com

I opened IE, closed it again and opened Regedit and the URL3 was gone but not the default with no value (or string).

Even rebooting and repeating the process didn't result in any values in the key which was still there.
I'm beginning to suspect something is erasing these when IE closes (but don't know why I found some there initially). I can't find any other utility program I'm using like Steve suggested.

Thanks for the response and suggestion.

 

Steve

Good suggestion. However, I have discovered that in Ace Utilities, there seems to be no way to undo the action of "clearing the typed URL's of the address bar ". You are told to use the address bar editor and check the URL's listed in it that you want to protect (not remove). I didn't do that the first time I used it, and now there are no entries that appear to be checked. I'm going to contact Ace Utilities support to get a clarification of how that is supposed to work (it may take a few days).

I discovered that Ace Utilities starts from a registry key when Windows opens. Assuming that Ace Utilities might be the source of my problem, I disabled it's startup using a feature in Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta 1). I verified that it had been disabled, but that didn't solve the problem. I also remember months ago, uninstalling Ace Utilities, and that was no help. Ace Utilities support gave me a newer version; hoping to correct the problem, which I am using now.

Sure appreciate all the suggestions. I'm going to keep trying until I find one that works. Will post to advise my success with Ace Utilities support.

 

Additional Information

While waiting for a reply from Ace Utilities supporrt, I discovered what could be a new aspect to this problem.
I have 2 user accounts on my PC. One is used infrequently, with a password to allow me to create disk images with Norton Ghost. When signed on to that account IE works normally with address bar history there from session to session.
Would this be an indication that the problem I'm experiencing with IE when using my normally used user is related to preferences and settings associated with that user? If so, how and what do I check to find if there are differences that may be causing the problem?

 

Workaround - but no resolution

Ace utilities response was a resolution that didn't work. They suggested that I put some entries in the address bar of IE and then open Ace Utilities and there would be URL's in the address bar editor to check to keep them from being erased.

I decided to create a new user account and transfer my documents and settings information from the account I normally use to the new one. This resulted in the address bar history being there from session to session.

My inquiring mind would like to know how the situation occured, so that in the future I might not encounter the same thing, but it's really not reasonable to pursue it beyond this point.

A big THANKS to all who made suggestions and started me looking in the right direction to resolve this issue. Had I a little more experience and confidence, I would attempt to be a contributor to this BB.