How can I set the global default Internet Explorer cache and Cookie settings on a multi-user compute

[John Collier]

I have seen enough from the M$ family of products to know that there is a default setting somewhere in the system that sets what the default means of handling the size of the temp IE cache and the way that they system controls (accepts/denies) cookies.

It has been my experience that the default size of the Internet cache, for example, is WAY too big on all of the machines that we are using for business (the newest XP machines default to about 1GIG of space for each users??? cache!). Since there are between 2 to 30 users on each computer (each with their own profile and cache) you can see where this would fill up a hard drive in a very short period of time. Where is this default set and how do I make a ???global??? change on it to bring it down to something more reasonable?

While we are in the process of making ???global??? user changes, how would I set the default cookie handling for each user to deny anything but session cookies? Thanks to the current M$ default, it accepts pretty much everything and users are starting to get way to much ???unwanted??? I-net traffic and pop-ups. I can manually run a program to clean these up at times, but it would be much more efficient to stop it at the source.

Before you say something about having each user manually making these settings on their own, please realize that there are a vast number of these users that wouldn???t know what a cookie was or have any concept of what an overly-large cache file could do to a system.

I guess I???m looking for a way to protect them from their own ignorance ;-)


PS I LIKE giving out points for answers. The better the answer, the more points (that???s a promise!!)

[Jon Finley]

Try under the following:
HKEY_Users / .DEFAULT / Software / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Internet Settings.

Jon

[Jon Finley]

More info.. You're most interested in what is under the Cache area (Content, Cookies).

Please test prior to points (may only work during initial account creation and IE setup, and NOT be a global setting).

Jon

[Jay Bollyn]

John,

Please let us know if Jon's suggestion works. I have been unable to find a registry tweak that will do what you need, either for global IE cache size or cookies. The default IE cache size is 10% of free disk space. This might have made sense years ago, but not with the size of HDDs today.

MS's suggestion (through TechNet) is to install IEAK, see here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/default.asp?url=/technet/archive/columns/inside/8-30-99.asp

The installation of IEAK is not trivial. I was unable to get through it successfully. I just gave up on it, because I thought you are not going to go with that option, anyway.

I do think that IEAK will probably let you take care of both IE cache size and cookies.

FYI: We have several subscription databases that we access through IE6. The cookie setting must be "accept all cookies" for these databases to work.

:-) Jay

[Jim Mallett]

I tried out Jon's suggestion this weekend and wasn't able to get it to work, I was so hopeful too. This is one of those things I've always wanted to figure out but never had time.
It seemed no matter what I set the registry at, when I created and logged in as a new user the defaults never changed.
Still plugging away at this though....

Jim

[John Collier]

Jon,

It would appear as if the thought was a good one, but it didn???t create the results that I was wanting. The search still continues.

FYI ??? I noticed that there were actually two different places that had the cache and history areas. There was one that looked like it was just ???straight Windoze??? and there was another that was listed as ???5.0???. I???m assuming that it is referring to Internet Exploder 5.0, but I could be wrong.

I also think that we may be on to something with the idea that we can change all settings for the cache for each future user if we find the correct setting in this area, but there is obviously some place that saves this type of information for each user as well. I can testify to this simply because my cache is now limited to 5MG while all the rest are still running right at 1Gig.

Let???s also not forget the cookie settings while we???re at this, ok? ;-)

Thanks for the first wave of ideas. Lets move on to round two???

[John Yu_1]

I believe the correct values are in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Internet Settings/Cache/...

There are values for CacheLimit in both Path and Special Path subtrees.

cheers,
-john

[John Collier]

John,

It seems that you are on the right track, but what I found there seems only to apply to my current cache size, not that of all users.

Am I to be reduced to searching for each person???s logon ID and manually changing each and every one of them by hand??

Please say it isn???t so??? ;-(

[Derek_31]

I changed everyone's cache settings by adding the registry key tweak to a user logon script. That way it runs for everyone every time they login. It's been working fine for me.

[John Collier]

Derek,

I have never had to use a logon script for any users, but I have heard of the concept many times.

Could you offer more information on how you have accomplished this using a logon script? Examples would be appreciated???

[John Collier]

Was my request out of line? Can anybody give me some examples of how this could be done with a logon script or through the registry (registry preferred).

[Ron Kinner]

I found a program called Cache Sentry which might help you with the first part. Haven't tried it myself but it sounds good.

http://www.mindspring.com/~dpoch/enigmatic/cachesentry.html

Seems like it has a control for cache size and if it ran for all users it would keep it small.

Ron

[Ron Kinner]

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/scriptcenter/default.asp

Talks about logon scripts.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/scriptcenter/scrguide/sagsas_overview.asp

is supposedly a guide to scripting.

Ron

[Jay Bollyn]

John,

I'm not sure if you are still interested in this topic.

This reply, while not a solution, might help.

I have been working with gpedit.msc recently, and I came across this (screen capture). If there were a per-machine setting for IE cache (rather than per-user), here is where it would be:

http://orion.neiu.edu/~jbollyn/scrn-cap/group-policy-admin-templates-ie.jpg

Hard to say if it was deliberately left out, or just an oversight. Perhaps a future upgrade will include this control.

:-) Jay

[John Collier]

Jay,

Rest assured that I am still interested in this topic. The only problem is that it seemed to be one that nobody else seemed to be interested in and my time in the forums has been greatly limited in the recent months ;-(

I have not had a chance to review the particular area that your screen shot points to, but I have to admit that I am intrigued by the possibilities. I will do what I can in the future to give it a ???test drive??? as time permits.

Thanks for the pointer???


I have, however, had a chance to look into the CacheSentry that Ron mentioned and I have been somewhat pleased by the initial results that I have seen from it. As time progresses, I feel rather confident that one of these suggestions (or a combination of both) will be fruitful

Please don???t think I have given up on this thread. I have not intentionally left any thread to die due to lack of attention (if anyone thinks differently of any of my threads, please let me know which one).

I welcome all of the input and will let everyone know what the final outcome is when I think this has reached a final conclusion.

Thanks for the input so far. Hope for more good ideas from anyone who feels like contributing!

[Jay Bollyn]

I think Ron's CS suggestion has a good chance of solving this particular problem.

I would look carefully at SMS, if you are running domains. SMS 2003 is due for RTM Q3.

Here is some SMS info. Note the "software metering" bullet point:

http://www.microsoft.com/smserver/evaluation/features/default.asp

SMS is, of course, more than you are asking for in this thread. But it could be a unified approach to several network needs, rather than a patchwork solution.

:-) Jay

[Sonja Simons]

This is not answere my ?, because I'm having

problems with my internet service & it tells

me to contact the maker of my computer. I'm

having problems staying connected and going

outside of the web site like aol or msn. I

can read my email from aol or msn but not

staying connected.

PLEASE HELP ME Sonja Simons symenssez@msn.com

[Ron Kinner]

Sonya,

Please start your own thread and I will be glad to help you. To save time I will tell you that you will need to download HijackThis from

http://www.tomcoyote.com/hjt/HijackThis.exe

Open it and press the Scan button then the Save Log button. Save the log where you can find it again then when you create your own thread by pressing Start New Thread, just attach the log by pressing the Browse button before you press the Submit button.

If you have trouble downloading it, get a friend to download it and save it to a floppy. It will run on your PC from a floppy and if you save the log on the floppy you can then post from your friend's computer and attach the log file.

Ron