History gone in IE

Every view except "most visited" is blank. I didn't delete any temp files or change any settings, my history is set to retain the last 14 days. I've done searches and not come up with anything relevant. I have IE 6 and XP Pro. If someone knows how to make it behave again, please let me know.
TIA
Johanna

 

Check your clock settings and, if you have TweakUI installed, check the settings under the Paranoia tab. Also, are you by any chance running McAfee?

 

ie history

I had the same problem and got the right answer right here on this board.! I don't know what I would do without this board!!!Search the board for ie history. My recollection is what was preventing my history was a selection in my McAfee virus software.

 

Christer, I have the following drop down menu views: by date, by site, by most visited today, and most visited. The only one that shows anything is the most visited. It USED to give me a selection of the past few days (or weeks)

No MacAfee, only Norton.

I do have TweakUI, but it must be an old one- there is no paranoia tab, and nothing relating to IE history.

Brett, I checked clock settings- I have had to reset the clock from CMOS, but not in a week or two. All appears fine there now. I am stumped. Any more ideas?

TIA
Johanna

 

The only changes I have made recently are adding the Google toolbar, and updating M$VM. I don't know how long the history has been messed up- I don't use it very often, but I do poke around the net, so it should be loaded. I did find a bunch of temp files under Doc and Settings- so the question remains, what disabled my History, and how can I get it back?

Johanna

 

From an MS newsgroup post (in response to an identical problem):-

I suggest you try the following:

Step 1: Try to empty Temporary Internet Files, History and Cookies in Internet Explorer and reset Internet Setting to the default value. To do so, please do the following steps: Delete temporary Internet Files
-------------------------------
1. Double click the Internet Explorer Icon on your desktop
2. From the Tools menu on the menu bar, select Internet Options, and then click on the General Tab.
3. In the center section, Temporary Internet Files, let's click on the Delete Files and Delete Cookies button.

Reset all the Internet Explorer Settings
-------------------------------------
1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Click Menu Tools, Internet Options.
3. Click the Advanced tab, click Restore Defaults.

Uninstall Internet Explorer Plug-ins
---------------------------------
1. Run Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools, Internet Options.
3. In the General tab, click Settings.
4. Click View objects and delete all the plug-ins.

Disable 3rd party extensions
------------------------------
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click Tools, Internet options.
3. Click Advanced, uncheck "Enable third party browser extension (require restart) "
4. Click OK and restart the system.

Step 2: Try to repair your Internet Explorer automatically. You can use the Internet Explorer Repair Tool to do so. Please perform the following steps:

a. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel
b. Click the Add/Remove Programs icon (If you can not find the Add/Remove Programs icon, please click the link "view all Control Panel options" on the left side of the window)
c. On the Install/Uninstall tab, click Microsoft Internet Explorer , click Add/Remove, click "Repair the current installation of Internet Explorer ", and then click OK.

Step 3: If the problem still exists, I suggest you delete the history directory, reboot the computer and let Windows re-create the history folder. Normally, the History is stored in the following folder:

Win98: C:\Windows\History

Win2K/WinXP: C:\Document and settings\<UserName>\local settings\History

Reboot the computer to see if the problem has been resolved.

Laura Zhang
laurazh@online.microsoft.com
Product Support Services
Microsoft Corporation

This posting is provided ¡°AS IS¡± with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

 

Okay, did all that...no change EXCEPT
1. I cannot "repair IE" from the Control Panel
2. I cannot delete the History folder (says it is a protected system folder)
3. History Folder will not show me the contents, but it claims to have 11 folders and 12 files for a size of 624K. I can't make it open, or delete it or the contents.

I suspect that if I really want it back, I'm gonna have to do something dramatic...do I see another reinstall looming on the horizon, or does anyone know a way to repair it from the run command?

Thanks for trying, though, Brett... >smooch<

Johanna

 

Sorry, the steps to repair are different for XP and are described (somewhere) on this site ... have a rummage!

 

Delete tif and delete History Folder How-to's:

http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/delcache.htm

 

I did all the clean ups that Brett suggested. Then I tried to delete the History file. Under properties, it claims to be rather full, but nothing displays. It refused to be deleted because it is a system file. I followed Ann's advice, logged in as the admin and it WAS NOT there. There was no History at all where it should have been under my log in name. So I deleted it from all users, Admin and default user. It was absent from Johanna (but shows when I log in as me) Hmmm...

I tried running the code Pete gave me, and got an error about the dll not being found. Found another similar string on another site, got another error. Advanced INF Install %remove_nodir_error%. Tried another suggestion given to me and got an error "install failed ".

Stopped by a friend's house tonight, and her XP home comp has the same History problem- wonder if this came with a patch? I don't use the History function much, so I can't pinpoint when the problem first started. Tried the same things on hers, got similar errors. Well, now I'm following the MS page for editing the registry (yikes! Don't they write this stuff in English?) so if I go offline for awhile, it's because I blew IE up! LOL

Johanna

 

Johanna - try changing the setting of 14 days to 13 or 15 and see if this brings the data back.

 

RE: Disabled IE History

Johanna,

Since no one has mentioned this, I thought I'd add some more things you could check...

1 - History tracking features are conventionally considered security risks, and any of dozens of tweaking utilities offer options to disable IE History, among a host of other MRUs (Most-Recently-Used" location records.)

Some of these tools are Tweaking Toolbox, TweakIE, Tweak Manager, PC Mag ListZapper, MRU Blaster, etc. I use Tweak Manager, ListZapper, and MRU Blaster, mostly to prune the Windows registry of numerous little-used entries before compacting it, before running a full disk defrag operation.

2 - Anti-spyware tools such as Ad-Aware, Spyware Blaster, Spybot Search & Destroy -- I use SB & SSD -- also disable tracking features in user-specified add-ins. I use the default settings without problems, however.

3 - If you use any of a number of IE add-in search toolbars (I use the *wonderful* Google Toolbar 2.0) it also has an option to disable the dropdown search history.

Despite my own use of these tools, I haven't encountered the disabled IE History problem, but there's a possibility that a setting in a third-party tool may be causing this.

 

Fatal System Error

In my zeal to be rid of annoying, but inconsequential, nuisances, I CRASHED my comp last night. "Fatal System Error "- not even a BSOD...could not boot, get into BIOS, nothing, nada. All because I wanted to correct one small nagging inconvenience. Good thing I do regular back ups! And, I have to say, that even though I stayed up all night reinstalling software, hardware and my files, it might be a blessing in disguise. I certainly accomplished some housecleaning!

I appreciate all the suggestions everyone was kind enough to make. I tried them all. What did me in was following the Microsoft fix. (I printed it and followed the directions EXACTLY) Glad I tried that LAST. I DO have my History back, now. I also have a squeaky clean and neat computer!

I have noticed a couple of other XP (Home and Pro) systems with the same History problems. I suspect one of the updates or patches caused this. I am going to do a VERY selective install of updates today, using my Belarcs from known good configurations, and SP1 isn't going back on here, at least not in its entirety. And, if any of you experience a similar History malfunction, I do NOT recommend the MKB for a fix. I have crashed computers before, but never as dramatically as I did last night. I have crashed them on purpose, and never that effectively.

Johanna

In case anyone is interested, this is the message I got:
STOP C000021a Fatal System Error
Oxc000034 (ox00000000ox00000000)

 

Update

This ended well, I guess.

History problem is fixed, but was done the hardway: