Delay loading IE home page for the 1st time

Re my Aptiva desktop with W98 (not SE): Why does it take so long, I wonder, (maybe 10-15 seconds), to retrieve my Home page the first time I try to get to IE after a boot, when subsequent retrievals usually take only 2 or 3 seconds? I’m curious about what is going on inside my pc ...wdc

 

wdc202--Your post concerns IE, but you have posted in the Netscape forum. Admin: moved to IE forum
Assuming you mean IE, I am just taking a guess that you are deleting Temporary Internet Files on shutdown, and therefore must load the entire homepage on reboot, whereas later in the day you are using files already in the cache to load the homepage.
Maybe someone has other ideas.

 

Welshjim is correct so I'll just add a little more detail.

Everything viewed on your computer has to be on your computer's harddrive first. Internet Explorer puts that data into its cache.

Every time you connect to a page, IE checks the page against what is stored in the cache. If it does not have that page stored in its cache, it proceeds to download it again, put it into the cache and display it.

As Welshjim said, if you're deleting the browser's cache on shutdown, IE will have to download the entire page into its cache the first time you view it that day. It will used the cached version until it's deleted.

 

Welshjim and Miz: Thanks.

How do I check to see if my options <are> set to empty the cache on shut-down; and how do I uncheck that setting?

 

Hi wdc202,

Not too familiar with IE, as I use Firefox, but try this ... in IE, go to Tools > Internet Options > Advanced tab. Scroll all the way to the bottom and make sure that Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed is UNchecked.

 

JSS3rd: Thanks so much for the very explicit directions. I tried them and found that that box IS unchecked. So it must be something else that is causing the slow operation when I first call up IE. ...wdc

 

wdc202--Yes, it could be something else, but try an experiment.
After a day of using your PC and surfing the Internet, do a Find for your Temporary Internet Files folder, right click on it, click Properties and note the size. Then the next time you reboot, right click|Properties on TIF before opening IE and see if the size has decreased substantially. That would suggest that you have some program installed that cleans out your cache (TIF) on shutdown. There are many such programs so I cannot tell you which is on your PC, but
1) Click Control+Alt+Delete simultaneously. Do you see any programs running that might do this?
2) Look in Start|Run|type MSACONFIG|OK|look in the Startup tab. Do you see any boxes checked to the left of a program that might do this?
Of course, if there is no decrease in the size of TIF, then the problem lies elsewhere. I do not think this is the reason, but you could try the opposite of what has been suggested so far. Just before the next time you shut down, click IE Tools|Internet Options|General tab|Delete Files. Now see how long it takes to get to your Homepage when you reboot. Maybe your TIF is so full, it has trouble downloading all the files for a fresh homepage.