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completely remove "index.dat"

Published in Windows XP Security Tweaks by TweakXP Member with 23,592 views and 4 comments

Index.dat files are files impossible to delete under windows, and it stores all the information of your surfing history, you can be followed through these dangerous files. and even if you delete your cookies and your history, these index.dat files remain there and become bigger and bigger, their original size is 16kb but they can reach up until 600kb.

to preserve your privacy I found a way to delete them.. it's impossible to do in windows thus you have to reboot your computer then press F8 or F5 for advanced boot options; then choose "safe mode with command prompt; log in as administrator and then from there you can delete them freely without windows preventing it.

just go to the root (c:\) by typing CD\


then type del index.dat /s then enter


and all the files names index dat in your computer will be deleted permanently.


for more security; also in command prompt mode; go and completely delete your cookies folder to be completely sure all your internet cache and history is gone forever. (well until you start browsing again; as soon as you boot up normally windows will recreate them.. But blank)


thank you for reading


Mario

 
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Comments
JBX5
2 years ago
Yes, thanks but can you obliterate the file and the process that creates the file? Can you stop the file from ever being created or written to again. That is the ideal path I would like to take. It gets old deleting it over and over, having to restart the pc everytime. I'm just above a novice but I'm going to school. I would like to make programs that can solve privacy problems such as this. If you know how, you could make some good money with a program that writes the information to a dummy file that you could delete without having to start in safe-mode and reboot everytime. What do you think?
jitendra deria
2 years ago
index.dat / recycler folder cannot be delted when explorer.exe is in memory...
Open Taskmanager
end process EXPLORER.EXE
Open File NEW TASK
CMD
CD\
rd recycler /s

You can do all the the partitions where you have recycler folder
Even you can delete the index.dat file

After completing the process
In taskmanager
New Task
explore.exe

You are back to normal windows screen

Thanks
Jitendra Deria
Microlystic Computers, Ahmedabad
Cel: 98250 30427
Yogesh Anand
One year ago
Hi,
This is yogesh i read your article. The tip is wonderful, keep posting such thing.
MLax-?
One year ago
I have question , how i can learn that kind of triks . Where is first step.