Adjust Windows' DNS cache

To speed up DNS, Windows puts the DNS information into a local DNS cache on your PC when you visit a site. So when you want to go to a site, Windows first looks in its local DNS cache, called the resolve cache, to see whether the DNS information is contained there. That way, if it finds the information locally, it doesn't have to look in your HOSTS file or query a remote DNS server to find IP information. The cache is made up of recently queried names and entries taken from your HOSTS file.

The cache contains both negative and positive entries. Positive entries are those in which the DNS lookup succeeded and you were able to connect to the Web site. When Windows looks in the cache, if it finds a positive entry, it immediately uses that DNS information and sends you to the requested Web site.

Negative entries are those in which no match was found, and you end up getting a "Cannot find server or DNS" error in your browser. Similarly, when Windows looks in the cache and finds a negative entry, it gives you the error message without bothering to go out to the site.

Negative entries can lead to problems. When you try to make a connection to a site that has a negative entry in your cache, you'll get an error message, even if the site's problems have been resolved and it's now reachable.

You can solve this problem, though, using a Registry hack.
By default, Windows caches negative entries for five minutes. After five minutes, they're cleared from your cache.

But if you'd like, you can force Windows not to cache these negative entries so that you'll never run into this problem. Run the Registry Editor by typing Regedit at a command prompt or the Windows Vista search box, and press Enter. Then go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM

\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache

\Parameters

Create a new DWORD value with the name NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0. (The value might already exist. If it does, edit its value to 0.)

The DWORD determines how much time, in seconds, to keep negative entries in the DNS cache. If you like, you can have the entries stay alive for one second by giving the DWORD a value of 1.

After you're done editing, exit the Registry. To make the change take effect, restart your computer, or flush your cache by issuing the command ipconfig /flushdns at a command prompt. The command will flush your DNS cache -- all the entries, both positive and negative, will be flushed -- and it will be empty until you start visiting Web sites. Negative entries, however, will not be added to the cache if you've given the DWORD a value of 0.

You can also use the Registry to control the amount of time positive entries are kept in the DNS cache. By default, they are kept for 24 hours. To change the default, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache\Parameters again and create a DWORD value called MaxCacheEntryTtlLimit. (If it's already present, just edit the value.) For the value, enter the amount of time you want the entry to remain, in seconds, making sure to use decimals as the base.