Internet Explorer Max Connections

If you are using a broadband connection it can be quite frustrating having to wait for Internet Explorer to finish rendering a web page.  Internet Explorer has a built in limit to the number of items that can be downloaded at any one time.  This limitation has been defined as part of the HTTP Specifications.  You can break the rules by added 2 registry keys so that your surfing should be much quicker.

To break the Rules you need to use Registry Editor. Playing with the Windows Registry could prevent your computer from working.  If you are using Windows XP, create a restore point.

• Open Registry Editor by typing REGEDIT into the Run dialog box (Start->Run or WIN+R)
• Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings
• Right click on a blank area of the right hand pane and choose New, then DWORD
• Name the new key "MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server"
• Double click the key to set a value.  The number 10 should be sufficient
• Right click on the blank area again and create another new DWORD key
• Name the new key "MaxConnectionsPerServer"
• Double click on the key and set the value. The number 10 should be ok.
• Close the Registry Editor
• Restart your computer for the new settings to take effect.

What this does is tells Internet Explorer to break the HTTP rules for both HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1 specifications.  HTTP 1.1 allows for compression of the web pages and should result in a quicker download.

Remember that Windows XP service pack 2 will still limit the number of outgoing connections that are made by your computer, but it should still have a speed improvement.

One other thing to note is that you are now putting a little extra load on the webservers that are feeding your Internet Explorer surfing.  This will be ok as long as the rest of the world doesn’t do this.