by matt

How do I make Internet Explorer download more than 2 files at a time?

Strick's asked me about this every so often for the last few years. Ran into the answer on a web log I read: As per the HTTP1.1 spec, IE will only open two connections to the same server. This can be a problem when you're trying to download multiple files over http, as the 3rd download will just hang until the first completes. A simple registry hack will change this: Under: [HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings] [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings] Add the following: MaxConnectionsPerServer dword 32 MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server dword 32 Make their value something like 8 (I think you can set it as high as 64). Although this breaks compliance with HTTP1.1/1.0, it can make IE faster overall, as this also affects the downloading of images. Also note that this will affect other applications that use HTTP.

 

Annotation by strick :
i thought it strange that the HTTP spec would specify such a maximum, so I found the paragraph. It's in section "8.1.4 Practical Considerations" of rfc2616 :

Clients that use persistent connections SHOULD limit the number of simultaneous connections that they maintain to a given server. A single-user client SHOULD NOT maintain more than 2 connections with any server or proxy. A proxy SHOULD use up to 2*N connections to another server or proxy, where N is the number of simultaneously active users. These guidelines are intended to improve HTTP response times and avoid congestion.

This is all in the context that you should be using "Persistent HTTP connections" (i.e. Keep-Alive) instead of many simultaneous connections.

But I think it should not forbid downloading multiple files, like I was wanting to do, particularly if it's from my own server.

Anyway, thanks for the hack!

--strick

 

 
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