On IIS on windows xp what is considered a single connection?

Question

On IIS running on Windows XP what is considered a single connection? If there are only 10 connection allowed on a single computer running windows xp (according to the MSDN website) what is considered a single connection. I thought this meant 10 users could simultaneously connect. But after working with just two users and having problems I am beginning to have my doubts. Anyone know for sure?

*Example Scenario: * On one report I am running an html page that has about 5 images and 3 frames in a frameset and several includes for javascript and css files. Are each of these considered connnections because it has to load up files by establishing a connection for each one asynchronously? The error message only comes When both users run this single report. One of the users experiences a fault on one of their sessions connecting to IIS and a subsequent loss of data on their browser while the other user does not experience any problems. Is this because a single web page can have multiple connections?

Answer 1

To speed up page loading times, modern browsers open multiple parallel connections to the server in order to download associated resources, like images and style sheets.

If you really need to serve up files from XP - get Apache or something.

Answer 2

TCP/IP in XP is limited to around 5 or 10 connections if I recall correctly.

There are ways to patch tcpip.sys to work around this such as the patch on this page http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-xp/remove-windows-xp-sp3-tcpip-connections-limit/

However I'm sure I remember somewhere this was against the XP EULA.