Here's a problem you never had to deal with when working with Windows 9x/ME. Windows XP and Windows 2000 have a special feature that allows them to connect to Internet servers faster. This feature, called the "client side DNS cache" allows your computer to keep a list of IP addresses for Internet web sites you've successfully contacted in the last 24 hours. However, this client side cache also does something called "negative caching". The negative caching feature allows the client side cache to remember that it wasn't able to find the IP address of an Internet computer. This negative caching can be very helpful at times, but it often creates more problems than it solves. Here's a method you can use to disable the client side negative DNS caching:

1. Click Start and point to Run. In the Run dialog box, type regedt32 in the Open text box and click OK.
2. Navigate to:
   HKEY LOCAL MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ Dnscache \ Parameters
3. Click the Edit menu, point to New and click DWORD Value.
4. Rename the value to NegativeCacheTime.
5. Note the default value is zero. That's exactly what you want!

You should notice a performance improvement for sites that were negatively cached by mistake. It's not something that will jump out and impress you immediately, but I think your Internet browsing should go more smoothly after making this change.