"Chris Y." wrote:
> 
> --
> Hello,
> 
> I have been using IE for several years but
> recently installed Netscape 4.5
> too. What is a _hash###### file? So far I have
> about 200 of them on my hard
> disk. Most in the Netscape folder but others in
> the folders where I write
> html documents and check them with Netscape. Can I
> erase them? What do they
> do? Who are these guys?
> 
> Any illumination appreciated.
> 
> --
> 
> [grayeagle]
> _____________________________

If you have any security certificates (digital IDs), export them to a file from the Security window.

Close Netscape, open Windows Explorer and go to your ...\Netscape\Users\{username}\ directory and rename cert7.db to cert7.bad. Restart Netscape and see if the flood of _hash files stops.
If it does, you can then import any certificates you exported.

This is ordinarily caused by a corrupt certificate database. Cert DBs created by Netscape 4.04 and up should not exhibit this problem, though DBs created by 4.03 or earlier (even if used in 4.04 or later) contained a bug that would occasionally cause this corruption. This bug was fixed
with 4.04 and up. The existing hash files can be deleted.