I have to unfortunately use Windows as I need software that is only available there and I cannot lose performance with workarounds like Wine or whatnot. I was trying to declutter as much as possible, disabled all history and tracking etc I could find. What I don’t understand is this folder:
C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History
When you click on it, there is a folder with a green arrow and a watch (the “History” folder also has this icon) that says “This computer”. Inside this folder there are different clickable icons with a calendar listed by day. “Today, Yesterday, Wednesday” etc. and it opens and it shows a lot of previously opened files but with an icon of what seems to be planet earth. If you click on one of them all folders are closed and it seems like it resets the explorer or something. I don’t get it. What’s the point of this and how do I disable it?
For instance, let’s say you recently opened “file.txt”, then it shows there and the properties are:
”Shortcut to the internet”
”file:///C:/files/file.txt”
”Last visit: some date here”
”Visits: 1”
And it seems it’s a shortcut to the internet. Wtf? This makes no sense. Hopefully someone knows what it is because it doesn’t sound great. Just let me know how to disable this crap and anything else I should I disable.
Edit: Okay so this seems to be related to Internet Explorer, as I have deleted history there and the files have disappeared. However, why in the world is Internet Explorer generating these history files of things I open locally? I haven’t even used Internet Explorer for years. Makes 0 sense.