Internet Explorer DNS cache location

Question

It is known that IE has its own DNS cache. I want to clear it at times. I know that I can do it by clearing browsing history in IE settings. But I'm looking for automatic method, so the location in file-system (or whatever) would be very helpful.

Solution

The accepted answer is wrong. IE does have its' own DNS cache, which can not be managed by ipconfig.

Refer to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/263558

SUMMARY In earlier versions of Internet Explorer (Internet Explorer 3.x), DNS host entries are cached for 24 hours by default. In many cases, this is too long. During this period, some host entries stop working because of change in the IP address of the remote server that was initially resolved.

Internet Explorer 4.x and later versions modify how DNS host entries are cached by decreasing the default time-out value to 30 minutes.

MORE INFORMATION WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

In some cases, this new time-out setting is too short. If your environment has a number of clients that are connecting and are all performing DNS lookups every 30 minutes, you may experience an unwanted increase in network traffic. To modify this behavior, make the following registry change: 1.Start Registry Editor. 2.Locate and click the following key in the registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings

3.On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry values: Value Name: DnsCacheTimeout Data Type: REG_DWORD Radix: Decimal Value: (time in seconds)

Value Name: ServerInfoTimeOut Data Type: REG_DWORD Radix: Decimal Value: (time in milliseconds)

4.Quit Registry Editor. For example, to set the time-out value to 10 minutes, use a value of 600 seconds.

Note You must use both the registry values listed in step 3 to control the Internet Explorer internal resolver cache mechanism.

Note These settings apply to Internet Explorer and Asynchronous WinInet calls only. These settings do not apply to Synchronous WinInet calls.

Comments

[Burgi]

Could you possibly quote the relevant sections of that KB article?

[user1748640]

Refer to this one as well: For performance reasons, WinINET caches address lists using an in-process memory cache; this cache allows reuse of recently used addresses without resolving them again. DNS resolutions are also cached by Windows’ DNS Resolver itself, but retrieving them from the Windows cache requires an RPC call, which, while much faster than issuing a DNS request on the wire, still takes some time. blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ieinternals/2012/09/26/braindump-dn‌​s