How to clear the DNS cache? When its necessary?

DNS (Domain Name Service) – the mechanism used on the Internet to set the correspondence between the numeric IP-addresses and text names. Whenever the DNS-server receives information about the domain, the information is cached in local drive for later use.

DNS caching on the local machine provides quick access to any domain and reduces the load on the DNS-server by reducing the number of calls to him. However, caching has some drawbacks, resulting in inability to open the site by changing your IP-address, which refers to a domain name. This problem becomes apparent if the site is easily loaded by using a proxy-server. But How to clear the DNS cache?

How to clear the DNS cache in Windows XP and Windows Vista, follow the following instructions:

1. Click on the Start and select Run. In the dialog box, type Cmd and press Enter.
2. In the opened command prompt, type ipconfig and press Enter, this will lead to the purification of DNS cache.
3. Once you get the success message notification, just type the ‘exit’ command and hit enter, to close the operation.

If you see a response message as “Unable to clear the resolver cache DNS: Failed execution of the function (Could not flush the DNS Resolver Cache: Function failed during execution), then you have disabled service DNS-Client.

To start the service DNS-Client again, perform the following steps:

1. Click on the Start and select Run. In the dialog box, type services.msc and press Enter.
2. In the next window select the service DNS-Client and click on the Start the service.

When it’s necessary to clear DNS Cache?

If the IP (Internet Protocol) address of a computer or server that you have recently used by its hostname has changed and in case if you are trying to access the host name again, it will not work. Windows operating system keeps a DNS cache to store the names and IP addresses of systems that you access. But If the IP (Internet Protocol) address of one of those systems has changed before it expires from the cache, then you will need to clear your DNS cache from your computer as I mentioned above.