Helping Internet Explorer forget remembered URLs

By JOHN TORRO

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 11, 2001

Q. In Internet Explorer, if one clicks the down arrow to the right of the address line, a list of remembered addresses appears. Is there a way to selectively delete these?

A. The registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs holds the individual entries for the URL history you see in the Internet Explorer Address/URL drop down menu. If you feel comfortable editing the registry (always make a backup first), you can selectively delete entries. Of course, you can wipe them all out from the Internet Explorer menu bar by clicking Tools, Internet Options, General Tab, Clear History button.

Media Player and old file names

Q. When I run the Media Player in Windows Me and click the file button, the dialog box displays some extraneous file names at the bottom that I had previously used but later deleted. How can I remove the old file names or all file names shown?

A. The Windows Media Player 7 Bonus Pack, which can be downloaded at www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/
en/download/bonuspack.asp, comes with a utility called Power Toys, which includes the CLEARMRU.EXE (Clear Most-Recently-Used) program. This will accomplish what you need. Your other option would be to delete them from the registry by running RegEdit and navigating to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Player\RecentFileList registry key. Make sure you take the proper precautions (make a backup) whenever you make manual changes to the registry.

HTML in e-mail

Q. I have a couple of problems that nobody seems to have an answer for. In some of my e-mail I get a number of items such as this: " ." It sometimes appears at the end of a sentence or scattered throughout the message. Occasionally when I try to get on the Internet, the screen goes dark and a yellow dotted line appears at the top. Nothing I do eliminates it and gets back my screen. I have to pull the plug and then insert it back into the wall socket. Is there anything I can do besides pulling the plug?

A. The " " line is HTML, the language for Web pages, and represents a blank space. Check your e-mail program options to see if there is an option that needs to be selected in order for it to display e-mail with HTML properly. Your monitor problem may be software driver related. Check with Compaq support to make sure you have the latest drivers or to eliminate any possible hardware causes.

Removing the Windows Login, the sequel

Q. Having spent the weekend going nuts trying to remove the password requirement from my Dad's computer, I was delighted to see your fix in the May 21 column . . . but it didn't work. I raced to the computer, running Windows 98, followed your advice and found only the User Profiles (under Passwords Properties) tab available. I fired up my computer, also running Win98, and found both tabs. What's the story?

A. Rather than go into various reasons why you're experiencing this behavior, try this: Make sure the "This computer uses one user" is checked in the Passwords, Profiles tab. Next, delete all *.PWL files in the Windows folder. Reboot. When asked for a username/password, specify only the username and leave the password blank. You'll be asked to confirm that you want a blank password, click OK, then continue. This should remove the Windows Login.

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