INFO: Controlling the Caching of Web Pages with IIS 4.0

ID: Q189409

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Information Server version 4.0

SUMMARY

The purpose of this article is to describe how to control caching in the three applications that can control the caching of a Web page. It will not go into thorough detail for all, but will provide references to articles where you can find more details.

MORE INFORMATION

Caching of Web Pages can happen in three separate entities in a Web environment. When you think about caching, you usually think about the Web pages cached locally in your temporary Internet files on your local machine as a result of having visited the page. But caching can also occur within the Internet Information Server (IIS) Server, and if a proxy server is present, it can be configured to cache the pages. This article describes how to prevent client browser caching and how to configure IIS 4.0 server caching. For more information please see the references section of this article.

Browser Caching

By default, the browser caches a visited Web page and stores it in the temporary Internet files of the profile that was used to log into the computer. If users of the browser do not want to be presented with cached pages when requested, they can define how the Internet Explorer browser will request content by following these steps:

Open Internet Explorer 4.x.

From the View menu, click Internet Options.

Click the General tab.

Click the Settings button.

Select "Every visit to the page" for how often to check for newer versions of stored pages.

But having all of your users do this is unreliable, and the above example describes only how to do this on one of many different browsers. To programmatically prevent a Web page from caching on the client, add the following line of code to the Meta section of your Web page:


   <META HTTP-EQUIV="PRAGMA" CONTENT="NO-CACHE">

IIS 4.0 Caching

ISAPI applications (Active Server Pages Web pages) can be cached on Internet Information Server. When you create a new IIS 4 application, caching of ISAPI Applications is on by default. Use these steps to disable caching:

Open the Microsoft Management Console (Inetmgr.exe).

Browse the Internet Information Server tree until you reach your application.

Right-click your application, and select Properties.

Click the Directory tab, and then click the configuration button*.

Click the App Mappings Tab, and clear Cache ISAPI Applications.

* If the virtual directory is not an application, the configuration button will not be available. Click the Create button, and then the configure button will be available.

You have now prepared your IIS Application so that it won't cache your ASP pages. But this alone is not enough. At the top of the .asp page that you do not want cached, add the following line:


   <% Response.Expires=0 %>

Proxy Server Caching

To prevent the caching of Active Server Pages at the proxy server, add the following lines at the top of your .asp page:


   <% Response.cachecontrol="private" %>

To Enable caching, add the following to your page:


   <% Response.cachecontrol="public" %>

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q165150 : How to Use Pragma: No-cache with IIS and IE

Q172896 : PRB: Browser Doesn't Show Most Recent Versions of htm/asp Files

Q183763 : Error Msg: Warning: Page Has Expired: The Page You Requested...

Q158264 : INFO: FAQ on Developing with the ActiveX SDK

Keywords : kbGrpASP
Version : WINNT:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbinfo