This is an old hack and it’s well documented all over the place so I don’t feel so bad about cutting & pasting the content but nonetheless it was taken from Computerworld.
By default, IE allows only two simultaneous download sessions from a single Web server. This can affect the speed of your Web browsing, because you’re not able to simultaneously download all the objects that make up a Web page, so the page displays more slowly. If you could force IE to download more objects at once, Web pages would display more quickly.
A tweak to the Windows Registry does the trick. With this tweak, you can force IE to use more than two simultaneous sessions. A good number is 10. Here’s how to do it:
- Run the Registry Editor by typing regedit at a command line or in the Windows Vista Start Search box.
- Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftware
MicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion
Internet Settings. - Choose Edit –> New –> DWORD Value.
- Create a new DWORD value called MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server, and give it a value of 10.
- Choose Edit –> New –> DWORD Value, create another DWORD value called MaxConnectionsPerServer, and give it a value of 10.
(Note: If you want to experiment with fewer or more than 10 simultaneous connections, change the value in both DWORD values accordingly.) - Exit the Registry and close IE. When you restart IE, the new value will be in effect and your Web browsing should speed up.