Clear Windows DNS Cache

Home -> Windows

From the computer of: davak (394 recipes)
Created: Nov 27, 2003     Updated: Feb 06, 2007

Add to:

Command to reset, flush or clear your DNS cache.

XP remembers negative (DNS unable to resolve) entries for a few minutes. Often this can be a pain when moving and debugging sites. As long as that negative entry sits in your DNS cache, your box will continue to give you a cannot find server error. By cleaning out your DNS cache, you can fix this problem.

Rebooting will flush your cache... but there is an easier way.

Drop to a command box and type:

Vista requires special directions for flushing the vista dns cache.

If you wish to stop XP from placing negative entries into cache, you can make this change in your registry.

1. Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ Dnscache\Parameters
2. Build a new DWORD value called NegativeCacheTime and give it a value of 0

I believe the default time is 5 minutes. I always use zero for my default time, but I think the value above is in seconds. So if you only want to save them for 1 minute, then I am assuming you would change that value to 60.