ItsGeekToMe.co

Q: I am using Internet explorer 6.0.  I have auto complete turned on and when I type a letter in the address bar, an “s” for instance or any other letter, a drop down list of several sites or files starting with an that letter shows. The list is from old sites that I visited and I would like to delete them.  I have used every cleaning method suggested on the internet and the help in Explorer. I delete temp file, history, index.dat and they continue to show. Any ideas?

– Tim P.
Fort Walton Beach, Fla

A: You didn’t really say why you’re still using a version of Internet Explorer that’s several versions old, Tim.  My advice would be to first upgrade to the latest version of IE, which is version 8.  In IE8 you can simply highlight an entry in the dropdown list and hit the “Delete” key to remove it.  If you absolutely can’t upgrade your browser, the history of manually keyed-in addresses in IE6 is actually stored in the system registry under key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs.  You’ll find keys named URL1, URL2, etc.  You can use RegEdit to delete these keys to clear out all the old addresses.  If you don’t delete all the keys, be sure you rename the rest in sequential order to avoid corrupting the remaining keys. 

Several readers have written-in lately to say that the advice I gave back in October to allow older legacy programs to run under newer versions of Windows didn’t work for them.  Jesse K., an IT technician at my company offered a totally different tactic.  It seems that Microsoft has developed an add-on for Windows called Virtual PC 2007, which allows you to run multiple “virtual” machines, each with its own operating system, all on a single PC.  That means you can set up and run Win 98, Win2K, and WinXP all on the same computer.  This is a hardware-intensive application, as you’ll quite literally be asking your computer to simultaneously run multiple operating systems.  That means you need enough hard disc space and RAM for both systems to run at the same time.  You can download Virtual PC at http://tinyurl.com/6j9zvv.

Geek Tip – Site Redirects: Ever since I’ve been writing It’s Geek To Me I’ve been using TinyURL to reduce excessively long web addresses to something that you can easily transfer from the newspaper to your browser.  That’s fine in this forum, as I personally test all the links I publish, but be warned of such links you might pick up from other sources.  They can redirect you to any site on the internet, including sites that install malware on your computer without you even knowing.  TinyURL offers the ability to preview any site before going to it.  Simply change tinyurl.com to preview.tinyurl.com, and it will show you the actual URL to which you’ll be redirected.

Well Geeks, this is my last issue before Christmas, so let me take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas from myself and Spouse Peripheral.  We’ve enjoyed meeting the many of you who have visited the Geek Lights on the Corner.  If you’ve been thinking of catching the show, it’s not too late (that includes you, Del Stone!).  Light shows run twice an hour every night until the Sunday after New Year’s at Bluewater Blvd and Antiqua Way in Niceville.