Flushing your DNS in Windows XP

[tnl2k7]

Flushing your DNS in Windows XP

When you change the configuration of a domain, Windows can fall behind because of the way it caches domains as you use them. Naturally this speeds up web browsing because you don't have to resolve domains every time you want to visit the site; but it does cause issues sometimes. Flushing your DNS cache involves forcing Windows to delete these entries. It may sound complicated, but in reality it only takes two ticks. Here's some simple instructions your nan would understand, with explanations and images.

Before you ask, I'll write a guide for Windows Vista shortly. I've written the Windows XP one first because most people use XP, and I haven't got a Vista virtual machine set up yet.

Before you start, you may want to close all your open applications that may be using the web. This may cause them to go a bit mental. You may also want to disable your security applications, some over protective firewalls may prevent this from working.

And, you'll need to login to see the images.

1. Click the 'Start' button, we'll be needing the Start menu for this.
   
2. Click 'Run...', so we can open Command Prompt.
   
3. Type 'cmd' without the quotes, and click 'OK'.
   
4. In the resulting Command Prompt window, type 'ipconfig /flushdns' without the quotes, and hit 'Enter' on your keyboard. This is the command that flushes Windows' cache of domain names, other than a couple of core ones that it requires to function properly.
   
5. You should see something that looks like the stuff in the image below. Congratulations, you're done!
   

Well, there you have it. Now you should be able to view the site that resides on the domain whose properties you just fiddled with. Bear in mind that Windows will build this cache back up again over time, but you shouldn't need to flush it all out for quite some time.

-Luke.

[sunils]

Thanks for that tutorial. Now i can redirect people to this thread who report problem that their site doesnot show up.

[hamsn]

hey good tutorial
will this also refresh ip address?
i have seen some similar sort of things ppl do to overcome rapidshare time limit and ip download limit

is this the one or whats that?

[sunils]

No, it doesnot refresh/reassign new ip address. for that you have to use.
ipconfig/release-->for releasing the current ip address
ipconfig/renew -->for getting new ip address from the DHCP

[hamsn]

well thanks for it
i wanted to confirm it, because many time i failed getting errors

Thank you Sunil

[sunils]

If you have admin rights you will have no problem working with those commands

[tnl2k7]

This tutorial doesn't change your computer's IP address. it flushes the Windows cache of domains (names of websites which point to IP addresses). If you use a router, you can get a new IP address (provided your ISP uses DHCP) by resetting it. If you use a direct connection (ADSL / Dialup modem) you can restart the PC or use the commands Sunils mentioned above.

You can see the tutorial on my blog, at http://www.tnl2k7.uk.to/?p=3

-Luke.

[Eclipse4]

I want to point something out with your tutorial, it can be done even simpler.

1. Click the 'Start' button, we'll be needing the Start menu for this.
   
2. Click 'Run...'.
   
3. Type 'ipconfig /flushdns' without the quotes, and click 'OK'.

You won't see much after that. You may see the command prompt pop up briefly and disappear but that's it. You're done after you do that.

[tnl2k7]

I want to point something out with your tutorial, it can be done even simpler.

1. Click the 'Start' button, we'll be needing the Start menu for this.
   
2. Click 'Run...'.
   
3. Type 'ipconfig /flushdns' without the quotes, and click 'OK'.

You won't see much after that. You may see the command prompt pop up briefly and disappear but that's it. You're done after you do that.

That's the reason I did it this way. If Windows complains about some service failing to work, you can see what's going wrong and correct it. The ability to view the output from commands is useful, hence the fact it was done this way.

-Luke.

[GBH187]

That's the reason I did it this way. If Windows complains about some service failing to work, you can see what's going wrong and correct it. The ability to view the output from commands is useful, hence the fact it was done this way.

-Luke.

faster way would be to press the windows key + R which will open the run prompt

this will reduce the need for a mouse.