There could be a number of reasons why you would want to flush DNS cache, and you would find that most of them would have to do with the fact that you’re getting error messages when you try to connect to a particular website – even though it might have been working perfectly as little as one or two hours ago.

This is because the DNS (Domain Name System) service allows your computer to store or cache the address of any websites you visit allowing the exchange of information to be faster, which in turn means that you will get to your websites faster.

Normally, the DNS information is stored only for 24 hours on your PC. There can come a time however, when it becomes desirable and necessary to flush DNS cache from your computer in order to force your computer to look up the necessary information from scratch instead of relying on the cached IP address information.

This generally occurs when the cached information changes within that 24 hour period. Or in other words, the IP address of the website changes. When this happens, because the information is already stored on your PC in the DNS cache, you will be unable to connect to the particular web address you need. Instead you will receive error messages telling you that your PC was unable to connect to the website.

To help you get out of this fix there are a couple of things that you can do.

* Wait for the 24 hour time period to lapse so that your PC can retrieve the new DNS information

* Or you can choose to flush DNS cached information yourself.

If you’re in a hurry, the latter idea might seem like the best way to proceed!

So, to flush DNS cache in a Windows operating system you will first need to access the Command Prompt. Do this by going to the Start Menu and choosing the “Run” button (this is for Windows 98/95, 2000, and Windows XP); then type in the letters “cmd” to open the Command Prompt.

For Vista users just type in “cmd” into the search box and you will be rewarded by a result showing you the Command Prompt. Click on it.

On the command line, change the directory until you are in the C: directory with no sub-directories branching out from it. In your command line now type in,

ipconfig /flushdns

and press the Enter key.

Within seconds you should get a message saying that the flush DNS was successful. Your computer will now have to make a new request to get the IP address to connect to the website. If the flush DNS worked properly, then you should be able to connect without any error messages coming up.

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