why do js cookies get written encrypted to index.dat?

[Jason Shohet]

I need a simple cookie to be written from dos commands (a batch file), and
go into the cookies folder, to be a textfile that is easily readable -- not
an encrypted thing in the index.dat file (which i think is where .NET
cookies go?). Then I want to read from that cookie, in a .NET app, later
on. My thinking today was to try a js cookie, since .NET cookies are too
difficult to write (need Interop etc).

Unfort, when I write a js cookie, it too seems to be written to the
index.dat file! I recall a couple years ago when I started out with .NET,
if I wrote js cookies, they did appear in the cookies folder -- as regular
text files! I wonder if something has changed to force them into index.dat?

(My basic goal is I need to read from a file (cookie or otherwise),
containing the machinename of the current user's machine. Netbios is turned
off -- so those gethostmachine func's aren't going to work. I'm basically
stuck here. I need to find some way for .NET to read a bit of info off the
current user's machine. And that info has to be written there thru easy dos
commands (sheesh)

TY jason shohet