(tumbleweeds rolling across deserted streets - the sound of wind blowing against dilapidated buildings, periodically slamming old wooden doors falling off their hinges)

hi

i have searched for this pretty much everywhere i could think of and came up still wondering about a quirk in the IE cache system.

i am working on a little VB based prog that needs to list all the cache URLs that are picked up during navigation - but they have to be the right ones.

the IE cache bug i discovered is where the index.dat file (for example) will list a URL as:

http://thissite.com/hello.htm

but the exact same referenced page in what is called the privacy report accessed via the View menu in IE will show this as the URL

http://thissite.com/hello.aspx?var1=x&var2=y

did you catch that? this is just an example, but it happens all the time where the actual link is the one with the .asp?, or aspx?, or php?, or suffixes along those lines, but when IE stores the page in the cache folder, it saves the page with a truncated URL reference.

is there a way to get at the cache URL, the actual one, that (apparently) is displayed in the privacy report window? at the very least, does anybody out there have any idea where the data resides that shows up in that privacy report window?

leave it to MS to display behind a bullet-proof window in a room with no apparent doors the very thing i am looking for.

i have posted the same query in dozens of forums but have not recieved a single reply. is this some sort of 'taboo' subject, to want to copy cache URLs to a text file?

at least FireFox doesn't think so, as its history.dat file is very complete and very easy to access. but VB has an IE limitation, and thus if i am going to get an accurate rendering of cache URLs it has to come from wherever the place is that holds the URLs you see in the so-called privacy report.

i know a little about VB, and there is a lot i dont know. but what i find hard to believe, with all the really super guru computer coders out there, possessing all that knowledge, haven't a clue as to why the privacy report cache URLs and the URLs that end up in the index.dat file are often truncated when it comes to asp, aspx, php, and those types of URLs, and, and haven't a clue either as to which file the URLs displayed in the privacy cache window are located.

maybe someone over here has an answer to this question.

the closest thing i got to an answer is here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa740718.aspx

that shows a C++ code snip of

HRESULT Next(
BSTR *pbstrUrl,
BSTR *pbstrPolicyRef,
LONG *pdwReserved,
DWORD *pdwFlags
);

from the site:

"IEnumPrivacyRecords::Next Method

Gets the contents of the current privacy record and moves the pointer to the next privacy record."

naturally, there is no working example, but at least there is a glimmer of hope that *maybe* someone who knows a little more than i do about this can get me pointed in the right direction.

thanks

(moon's rising and no sounds can be heard except crickets ... )