Windows 7 / Networking

Web Browsing with HTTP (Including HTTPS)

HTTP and HTTPS are the standard protocols that Web browsers use. With HTTP or HTTPS and BranchCache, intranet Web pages can be cached in the branch office and retrieved by other clients on the local network. BranchCache provides a separate cache from the cache built into Windows Internet Explorer. The Internet Explorer cache is accessible only to the current user, whereas BranchCache is accessible to other users at the same branch.

BranchCache is not designed to be used with Internet Web pages. For HTTP caching to be supported, the Web server must be using Windows Server 2008 R2 with IIS. Only content marked as cacheable will be stored using BranchCache. Typically, this allows the most bandwidth-intensive Web content types to be cached, including static HTML pages, documents, images, sounds, and videos.

For example, consider a scenario in which Human Resources posts a video for all employees to watch. If that video is hosted on a Web server with BranchCache enabled, the first and second clients to view the video can download it from the intranet Web server across the WAN. The second client stores a copy of the video in the cache. Then, the third and subsequent clients download a small identifier from the intranet Web server and retrieve the full video directly from the cache.

Because each page might be different, most dynamically generated Web pages cannot be cached. However, BranchCache can still reduce WAN bandwidth usage by caching static images referenced in the page.

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In this tutorial:

  1. Configuring Windows Networking
  2. Usability Improvements
  3. Network And Sharing Center
  4. Network Explorer
  5. How Windows Finds Network Resources
  6. How Windows Publishes Network Resources
  7. How Windows Creates the Network Map
  8. Network Map
  9. Set Up A Connection Or Network Wizard
  10. Manageability Improvements
  11. Network Location Types
  12. Policy-Based QoS
  13. Selecting DSCP Values
  14. Planning Traffic Throttling
  15. Configuring QoS Policies
  16. Configuring System-Wide QoS Settings
  17. Configuring Advanced QoS Settings
  18. Testing QoS
  19. Windows Firewall and IPsec
  20. Windows Connect Now in Windows 7
  21. Core Networking Improvements
  22. Networking BranchCache
  23. How Hosted Cache Works
  24. How Distributed Cache Works
  25. Configuring BranchCache
  26. BranchCache Protocols
  27. File Sharing Using SMB
  28. Web Browsing with HTTP (Including HTTPS)
  29. DNSsec
  30. GreenIT
  31. Efficient Networking
  32. What Causes Latency, How to Measure It, and How to Control It
  33. TCP Receive Window Scaling
  34. Scalable Networking
  35. Improved Reliability
  36. IPv6 Support
  37. 802.1X Network Authentication
  38. Server Message Block (SMB) 2.0
  39. Strong Host Model
  40. Wireless Networking
  41. Improved APIs
  42. Network Awareness
  43. Improved Peer Networking
  44. Services Used by Peer-to-Peer Networking
  45. Managing Peer-to-Peer Networking
  46. Peer-to-Peer Name Resolution
  47. EAP Host Architecture
  48. Layered Service Provider (LSP)
  49. Windows Sockets Direct Path for System Area Networks
  50. How to Configure Wireless Settings
  51. Configuring Wireless Settings Manually
  52. Using Group Policy to Configure Wireless Settings
  53. How to Configure TCP/IP
  54. DHCP
  55. Configuring IP Addresses Manually
  56. Command Line and Scripts
  57. How to Connect to AD DS Domains
  58. How to Connect to a Domain When 802.1X Authentication Is Not Enabled
  59. How to Connect to a Domain When 802.1X Authentication Is Enabled