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CacheMonitor is used for tracking Internet cache changes. It displays the contents of the entire cache in a scrollable, sortable multi-column list window and displays changes to the cached files in the "Status" column.

To run the program, go to the directory you have downloaded it to and double-click on its icon. No installation is necessary. (To uninstall it, simply delete it.)

When started, it automatically does an initial scan of the cache. This version currently does not automatically update the cache listing like the original console display version of CacheMonitor. (A future version may have a setting for this.) To update the listing (after you have browsed a few web pages), go to the "Action" menu and select "Scan Cache". Any changes that occurred in the cache will be marked in the "Status" column. You can sort the listing by different criteria by clicking on the column headers. (Just like in Windows Explorer's detail view.)

When CacheMonitor finds files that have been deleted, it lets you know by displaying "Deleted" in the "Status" column. If you re-scan the cache for changes repeatedly while web browsing, the deletions displayed continue to build up, and can make the listing seem cluttered after a while. To remove these files from the display that no longer exist, selection "Remove Deletions" from the "Action" menu.

If you wish to have a permanent record of the changes that have occurred in your cache while you are monitoring it (or to simply save a listing of the files in the cache), select the "Save As" item from the "Action" menu. You'll be asked for a filename and a location to save the record. The newly created record is a plain text file that you can load into any text editor or word processor. The order in which the files are listed is the order in which they appear in the CacheMonitor window. Note that currently not all of the columns are output.

New for 2.06: CacheMonitor can include stray files in the listing. To enable this, go to the Options menu and checkmark the "Include Strays" item and re-scan the cache.

New for 2.08: CacheMonitor can include cookie entries in the listing. To enable this, go to the Options menu and checkmark the "Include Cookies" item and re-scan the cache. Note that cookies are not included in the cache size calculation displayed in the status bar at the bottom of the window.

New for 2.09: You can double-click an entry in the listing and it will open with its default file association. If the file is unsafe to open (an executable, for instance, which could contain a virus) you will not be allowed to open it under its default file association. You can override the default file association by going to the new setting in the options menu to specify a program to open all files. When you specify a program to run for opening all entries, all entries are allowed to be opened, including executables. NOTE: If you are not running the newer versions of Internet Explorer, you will not get the protection of the unsafe filetype check, so be careful when opening filetypes with the default association in such situations!

New for 2.10: CacheSentry Pro Backup files (.cbf's) can be loaded and viewed in CacheMonitor! You can then compare the cache backup to the current cache with this feature. Load the cache backup file and then do a "Scan Cache". Entries that display as "Deleted" are present in the backup but not the current cache. Entries that display as "Added" are present in the current cache but are not in the backup. You may also see other status changes depending on whether other attributes have changed between the backup and the current cache state. Note that you currently cannot open and view files stored in the cache backup like you can with files that are in the actual cache. (This will be implemented at a later date.)

A brief explanation on the column labels: (Some of them are rather technical; don't worry if you don't understand what they are all for.)

• Entry # is the order in which the cache entry was actually enumerated from the cache.
• URL is the URL of the cached file.
• Status displays what sort of changes (if any) have happens to the file since the previous scan of the cache.
• Local File displays the full path to the file as it is stored on your hard drive.
• Size is the size of the file in bytes.
• Last Access is the time the file was last read or written to. If you want to see if IE is removing files from the cache in the correct order, sort the list by this column.
• Last Modified displays the time the file was last written to.
• Last Sync'd displays the time the web browser last checked the web page this file came from as to whether it needed to be downloaded again or not.
• Flags shows various internal flags IE uses to keep information about the file. The value is in hexadecimal. If you see a 45, that means the file is subscription/offline content, and will be exempt from deletion by IE depending on the value in the 'exempt' field below.
• HR is short for "Hit Rate". This is the number of times you have visited this particular URL.
• UC is short for "Use Count". I believe this is the number of applications that currently has this file open for some I/O operation.
• Exempt is an IE4 and higher value. It prevents the file from being deleted for the number of seconds specified from the time the file was last accessed.
• Expire Time is the time at which the file is no longer considered valid. If the expiration date has passed, revisiting the URL of this file will cause IE to download the data again.
• HTTP Response Header is additional data communicated between the browser and the web server.

Here are the types of changes CacheMonitor makes note of in the "Status" column:

• Added - This URL's file or a stray file was added to the cache since the previous cache scan.
• Deleted - This URL's file was deleted from the cache since the previous scan.
• Rvst'd - This URL was revisited. (The revisited change is triggered by the "Last Access" time changing. Future versions of this utility will also allow you to trigger it on changes to the "Last Sync'd" time, for users who don't spend any time offline browsing.)
• Updated - This file was updated in the cache because a newer version was available on the web server and was re-downloaded.
• Finished - A stray file (which is usually an incomplete file) was finished being received from the server and is now complete.
• Changed - CacheMonitor sensed a change in one of the other columns' data for this entry.
• Moved - IE moved the file from one cache subfolder to another. This is usually because content was re-sent from the web page to the browser, and IE likes to balance out the files in each cache subfolder, so it gets moved to the smallest folder. Note that this status type has display priority over the revisited, updated, and changed status changes, so it will mask those listed change types.