Genealogy Chat

Sue....you're welcome! Instructions aren't in manuals as that is how PC World, and the like, make the big $$$! Simple once you know how. Glad it helped. Judy : ) PS: Temporary internet files would be emptied the same way....the only difference when emptying is that everything will delete from the yellow folders....there is no index.dat to worry about.

Judy - thankyou for that, I think - Phew! that was scary but I've done it!! Instructions even I could follow - We've had this puter just over a year so you can imagine just what was in there. I'm sure there's nothing in the book that came with it to tell you how to keep your 'innards' in good working order - I spose they assume that everyone knows what to do. Or you pay P.C World to do it for you Lol! Sue.

EMPTYING COOKIES (There is more than one way to empty cookies cache...one being going to START, MY COMPUTER, CONTROL PANEL and click on DELETE....but it doesn't delete everything in your cache...below will empty everything in your cache.) 1. Click on START at the bottom of your computer screen 2. Click on SEARCH. 3. A box appears titled SEARCH RESULTS at the top of the box. On the left of this screen area there is a list of options. Click on ALL FILES AND FOLDERS. 4. Now another box appears with same heading at the top SEARCH RESULTS. To the left you’ll see three fields under the sub-heading SEARCH ANY OR ALL OF THE CRITERIA BELOW. 5. In the first empty field, above it says ALL OR PART OF THE FILE NAME. Here you want to type in the word “cookie” (The “ “ doesn't need to be typed in, just the word cookie.) 6. The 2nd field where it says “A WORD OR PHRASE IN THE FILE” can be left blank; with nothing in it. 7. The third field that says “LOOK IN” should show: “LOCAL HARD DRIVE: C.” If it doesn’t look at the blank field and you’ll see a small arrow shaped like a “v.” Click on the arrow and a drop down box appears showing a list of areas in your computer. Click on LOCAL HARD DRIVE C and it will now appear in the field. (You may have to scroll to find it.) 8. Now click on SEARCH located under the three fields you just filled in. 9. Now a list of folders and files will be listed on your screen. What we are looking for in the list are any YELLOW folders labeled COOKIES. You may see other things listed with the word cookie in them but we will be working with only the YELLOW folders. 10. There may be just on or there may be several YELLOW folders listed labeled cookies. The following steps you’ll do to EACH of the YELLOW folders label cookies that you see. 11. Double click on the yellow cookie file to open it. You’ll now note that there is a list of things in this yellow folder. These are called cookies. Most sites you visit on the internet will place these cookies on your computer….you don’t have any control over this…..this is one of several reasons you’ll get a lot of pop up ads on your computer. What you want to do now is empty this folder….we’re emptying the contents of the folder….not deleting the Yellow Folder. Your computer needs the yellow folder to collect cookies. There is absolutely nothing in this folder that will harm your computer by deleting them. Not deleting cookies once in while will actually slow down your computer not to mention more annoying pop-ups for you. 12. To delete the cookies go to the top, left of your screen and click on EDIT. 13. A drop down box now appears…..click on SELECT ALL. You’ll now note that everything in the Yellow Cookie folder is highlighted. 14. Now locate the one file that is named INDEX.DAT. There is only file with that name in the folder. It will either be the first file listed or the last one. 15. On your keyboard, to the bottom left of the keys, find the one labeled CTRL. Click down and hold this key down. While holding this one key down, take your mouse pointer and click one time on the file called INDEX.DAT. You’ll now note that all the files are still highlighted EXCEPT the INDEX.DAT file. This one will no longer be highlighted. 16. Now go back to the top of your screen and click on FILE. 17. A drop down box appears. Click on DELETE. 18. A box will then appear asking if you want to delete these files…..click on OK. 19. You’ll now see all the cookies have been deleted except the INDEX.DAT file….yeah, you did it correctly! The index file, even if you skip step 15, will not disappear….your computer won’t allow you to delete this file….you’ll just get a pop up box saying it can’t be deleted and that’s fine. INDEX.DAT is a system file and your computer needs it. 20. If there are other YELLOW cookie files that were listed, go back to each one and follow the same steps for each. If there are several Yellow cookie files some of them may be empty (that’s fine) or they may show just one file called INDEX.DAT (that’s fine, too.) There is nothing for you to do to these Yellow cookie files. 21. Cookies have been deleted into your trash can so be sure to empty it to clear up space on your computer. Hope that clears it up for you......Judy : )

- they've gone!! :0) Many thanks to everyone - where would we be without your help and advice, i'll make a donation to Charity - all you Tech Wizards have probably saved me a fortune with your free advice. Sue.

Thanks Emma - i'm off to give it a go.. Sue

Sue, If you're in temporary internet files folder click the heading "type" at the top of the list of files and it will bunch all the same kind of files together. Click on the top cookie and then click whilst holding shift on the bottom cookie in the list and it will highlight the whole list - now you can delete them. You might have a folder just called cookies and here you can just delete the whole lot. Hope this helps, Emma.

Sorry to start another thread but.. it may as well be a bisciut barrell as far as i'm concerned :0( I've done empty the temp thingy and had a look at the list of files - there are hundreds of the blessed things with cookie in front of them.. Can I now delete all the files with 'cookie' in front of them without messing anything else up.? Sue.