How to Increase the No. of Simultaneous File Downloads in Internet Explorer

It’s pretty odd that Microsoft should impose a limit on the number of files that can be downloaded simultaneously in Internet Explorer. In Internet Explorer version 8 and 9 the number of files that you can download at once is restricted to six, but it was worse in Internet Explorer 7 and earlier where Microsoft limited the number to mere two. The limit is sensitive to the connection speed. If the browser detects dial-up connections, both Internet Explorer 8 and 9 will revert back to the limits from earlier versions.

While downloading more than 6 files at once is a bit too much (downloading more than 2 in a dial-up connection is foolish), you might still want to have the freedom to do it. This is how to increase the limit to up to 10.

Using Registry Editor

For Internet Explorer 7

1. Open Registry Editor (press Win+R, type regedit and press Enter)
2. Locate the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
3. In the right pane, right click and create a new DWORD. Name the new key MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server. Double click on the key and assign it the value 10.
4. Create another DWORD. Name this MaxConnectionsPerServer and also assign it the value 10.

For Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9

1. Open Registry Editor (press Win+R, type regedit and press Enter)
2. Locate the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\
   FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPERSERVER
3. There should be a DWORD key called iexplorer.exe. If not create a new DWORD and name it iexplorer.exe. Double click on it and change the value to 10. By setting the value to 10, you increase the connection limit to 10.
4. Now locate the following registry key: 
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\
   FEATURE_MAXCONNECTIONSPER1_0SERVER
5. There should be a DWORD key called iexplorer.exe. If not create a new DWORD and name it iexplorer.exe. Double click on it and change the value to 10. By setting the value to 10, you increase the connection limit to 10.

Using Group Policy Editor

1. Open Group Policy Editor (press Win+R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter).
2. Expand User Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, expand Internet Explorer, expand Security Features, and then expand AJAX.
3. Set the Maximum number of connections per server (HTTP 1.0) and Maximum number of connections per server (HTTP 1.1) options to the settings that you want.
4. Restart the computer to apply these changes.

Using Microsoft Fix-it

Microsoft has released a Fix-it solution for this particular problem. Download it from this page., run it and follow the steps in the wizard.