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If you’re a heavy downloader like I am, I’m sure you get flustrated by the limitations imposed by Internet Explorer sometimes.  By default Internet Explorer limits you to two active downloads and 1 queued download at a time.

Microsoft is actually following an internet standard so don’t blame them.  They’re following what’s known as RFC(Request for Comment) 2068.  It’s the specifications for the HTTP/1.1 protocol standard.

Section 8.1.4 Practical Considerations states

quote:

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Clients that use persistent connections SHOULD limit the number of simultaneous connections that they maintain to a given server. A single-user client SHOULD maintain AT MOST 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 of the Internet or other networks.

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However, this is just a suggestion and not law.  You are free to design your client to use as many connections as you want.

So this is how to change it so you can use more than 2 connections at a time in Internet Explorer.

This requires the use of the registry editor so the usual precautions should be taken.  That means don’t go messing around in things you don’t know what you’re doing!

1) Click the Start button

2) Select Run

3) Enter in “regedit.exe” and hit enter or click the ok button

4) Navigate till you find
“HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings”

Create two new DWORD values with names (right click inside the right pane and select new DWORD value)

“MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server” = Dword:0000000a
“MaxConnectionsPerServer” = Dword:0000000a

You’ll now be able to download up to 10 files at a time.  You can change that setting to whatever you want.  However, personally I think if you need to download more than 5 or 10 files simultaneously it’s time to look into getting a dedicated download manager program such as Download Accelerator, Gozilla or GetRight.

I use GetRight personally and love it.  When there are many files to download I can just drag and drop till my hearts content then let GetRight handle the hard work while I sit back and wait for my files to get transferred.