I want to retrieve the recently viewed pictures from IE. I know that all the files from IE exist in the internet temporary directory, commonly with the path like "C:\Documents and Settings[account]\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files".

Here something strange for me comes. I wrote a program of C++ to retrieve the directory above, and the result says it contains three subdirectories and one file. These subdirectories are Content.IE5, OIS, and OLK145, each contains lots of pictures, which I think are the ones I browsed recently on the web. The only file is desktop.ini, which is not my concern. However, when I open the directory in the file system, there are no subdirectories at all, but a lot of files, different from the ones in the subdirectories retrieved by the program.

I have several questions. Frist of all, why the content of the temorary internet files seems different? Which is the actual situation about the directory? Second, I found that in filesystem explorer, the files in the directory seem like some link to the ones on the web, not physically exist on my computer, is this true? Finally, how can I get the pictures viewed from IE recently with C++, as well as their original url?