Cookies folder

You cannot delete Index.dat files, they are system files. Just leave it alone.

you could just as soon delete cookies from ie/tools/options/general/delete cookies.. keeping the dell cookie along with storing my login information (ie/tools/options/content/autocomplete) makes it easier for me to sign in to delltalk. (that is the only password that i have stored, the one for delltalk). i use the cookie manager in ie/tools/options/privacy to block all first and third party cookies, allowing session cookies. where some websites require cookies (like delltalk), i add those sites to the allow list, where it says "edit" on the privacy tab. there are some programs that will "delete" (or clean) that index file.. the one that i use is south bay's supercleaner.. it is primarily for cleaning out junk files.. unfortunately, it isn't cheap. but, like i said, i have seen other programs that say they remove that index file.. i would also use spywareblaster, if you don't already have that. http://www.southbaypc.com/SuperCleaner/   http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareblaster.html   http://www.wilderssecurity.net/mrublaster.html     http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10214379.html?tag=lst-0-1   http://download.com.com/3000-2144-10194058.html?tag=lst-0-1   

You can get a free index.dat 'cleaner' called spider. It works well in XP. It simply reduces the size of the Index.dat files back to their minimum size (mostly 32KB, removing the traces of sites visited which are stored in the index.dat files in your history and temporary internet folders.

http://www.fsm.nl/ward/

Download and extract the zip file to any folder, doubleclick on Spider.exe (no install, no registry entries, no add/remove entry; to remove just delete the files). When you run it, set it to scan the whole drive c:, rather than its default which is to scan only c:\windows (a relic of the fact that earlier versions of Windows stored the index.dat files in a subfolder of \Windows; XP stores them under each user account).