The locked files can vary greatly, as these files need to be cleaned up differently depending upon your setup. Complete Cleanup will sometimes just "clean" these files, removing the links but leaving empty space in the file, while other times it will completely delete the entire file. (Some situations require these files to be there for your system to be stable). If you perform a locked file cleanup or a reboot after the locked file cleanup, and the files still show, this is sometimes normal. The files were actually cleaned and will not contain any visible links, even though the count shows they are there and it appears nothing happened. You can easily verify this by attempting to view the file in windows explorer by double clicking it. The file will not contain any visible webpage links. You may also see some history links in IE, but if you click any of them after the locked file cleanup, you will see that no links are visible under these either! (of course, the current day will show some as that is populated as soon as you open the IE browser).

"Internet Explorer files seem to appear, even when I don't use Internet Explorer. Why?"

If you aren't using Internet Explorer, you system may still need some files for Windows to be stable. This is normal, and you may see this happen depending upon your system setups. You may either perform a cleanup on these or just ignore them as they won't contain any website information unless you use Internet Explorer.

"The automatic cleanup doesn't seem to be working. Why?"

The automatic cleanups are "logged" AFTER you attempt a cleanup. In other words, if you add the automatic cleanup when you first enter Complete Cleanup, then no locked files were "logged" and none will be cleaned up. To fix this problem, open Complete Cleanup, click "Cleanup All", and if you get locked messages, click "Locked Files" and then add the automatic cleanup. Complete Cleanup will either perform an immediate cleanup on these files, or it will inform you that the next time you reboot, these locked files will be cleaned.

"Does IE5.x, IE6.x, and later work differently?"

All the browser versions store files differently in various ways. You do not need to worry about this as Complete Cleanup will work with all versions for both IE and Netscape (AOL included).

"There is still some cookie files on my system after all cleanups have been done. Why?"

First, read about locked files above which may be one reason. Second, make sure you have not selected to "keep" any cookies. Once you selected "keep cookies", these will remain until you remove them from the saved list under the "Keep Cookies" button.

"Sometimes all the files are not deleted, and I get a locked message. Why?"

The active desktop (Win95 with active desktop option set on) can cause some files to be continuously locked. Win98 can have an effect similiar to this also. These can be easily removed by clicking the "Locked Files" (only AFTER receiving a locked message for IE) button and following the instructions listed. If you get a locked message with Netscape, simply close Netscape and run Complete Cleanup again to remove the locked files.