How to edit the contents of index.dat windows file

Question

Hi Everybody,

I need to be able edit the content of index.dat file programmatically (C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Cookies\index.dat). More precisely I need to modify it in order that index.dat for one user can be used for a different user name. Is there any documentation out there for this kind of binary file?

Thanks, Radu

Answer 1

Pasco (http://www.foundstone.com/us/resources/proddesc/pasco.htm) is a free index.dat parser that comes with the source code.

Answer 2

Docs will be hard to come by - Microsoft has never publicly documented the structure of the the structure of this file. That said, you can find docs on the web such as the one mentioned above. However, note that IE keeps close tabs on this file. The file is locked while IE is running (meaning, you can open/read it in some modes but not in others) and you can certainly not write to it.