how i solved my favicon IE8 problem

Hi! I am no expert on web design or in Xara... but... I want to share, in case another newbie has the same issue.

I had the problem that my favicon.ico was showing in all browsers, except IE8. My research showed that a lot of people have this problem.

I created my png with Xara Web Designer 6 and saved it as an .ico file with IcoFX (imported 16x16 in 256 colors). I saved the favicon.ico file to where my index.htm file is saved in the server.

I used this thread and tweak to create a placeholder.

Then used wikipedia to modify the placeholder to the following: <link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.example.com/myicon.ico" /> because it said that it worked across all browsers, including IE8.

I knew I was doing something right because I could see the favicon in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. But in IE8 it wasn't working. I cleared my "temporary internet files", closed IE, and refreshed the page a thousand times. I even restarted my computer!

Then, I found this article. I cleared the HISTORY on IE8, as thearticle recommends on the third Q&A and voilá! IT WORKED!

I am honestly not sure which of these steps fixed the problem... but I am so happy that it's working now! I hope this helps someone out there...