Windows Vista™ Inside Out

Managing Internet Explorer’s Cache and History

Internet Explorer’s cache (also known as the Temporary Internet Files folder) and browsing history are items that have changed little since previous versions of Internet Explorer. One notable exception is the location for these items. Since Internet Explorer now uses Protected Mode for most browsing, the cache and history folders are now considered virtual folders with the same low privilege as that of the Internet Explorer process itself. Improvements have also been made to the built-in management of the cache to keep it from growing too large.

Changing the Size of the Cache

Temporary Internet files are stored by default in various subfolders of the hidden system folder %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary ...