Boy, do I feel stupid. In my absence, my dad received an email from our ISP warning about a new virus and to do the Windows Update thing, so he did. Now I have no idea what that last update did. I have figured out that it's enabled the XP Internet Firewall by default. But something else also happened; IE now deletes all my cookies and autocomplete entries on exit, though my history remains untouched. Where on earth is the setting that controls this? Certainly not in Internet Options, that's for sure.

Internet options, advanced.

Thanks, now I feel extra-stupid for not noticing that stuff before. ;-) I _thought_ I had checked over everything in Advanced, but I guess I was wrong. *bangs head on wall*

We all have to bang the head occasionally to get rid of the previous input. LOL Take care.

Don't bang your head just get rid of IE. No more headaches. Seriously, look at the number of problems on this forum caused by IE. A whole industry has developed to close the holes in IE. I truly do not understand why anyone would continue to use it, without giving other browsers a try.