Thursday, January 28, 2010

How to disable "Reopen Last Browsing Session" feature in IE8?

Windows 7 comes with Internet Explorer 8, which offers many great new features. One of those is the ability to reopen your last browsing session - this can be a godsend if you accidentally close the browser with a number of pages open that you need to go back to. No more hunting through the History list - you can have them back with a single click. But there are situations wherein this can be a security issue. If you don't like the idea of having your previous browsing sessions so accessible, you can disable the feature and clear the browser cache so it won't be so easy for someone to see where you've been on the web. Here's how:
  1. In the registry editor, navigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Policies \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ Recovery
  2. In the right pane, right click an empty space and select New DWORD value (32 bit) Value.
  3. Rename the new Value NoReopenLastSession
  4. Double click the new value and set the value data field to 1
  5. Close the registry editor.
  6. Close and restart IE to make the change take effect.

Note: If you want to completely hide the tracks of your previous browsing, clear the browser cache as well: click Tools Delete Browsing History.

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