Want to speed up your MSDN Downloads?

If you're an MSDN subscriber and have ever tried to download a huge set of files, I'm sure you know how long it can take when you're only getting about 25kbps speed from Microsoft's MSDN Subscriber Downloads. The problem is, you may be hitting a non-US mirror site. So, here's a way to speed things up a bit.

In the hosts file on the machine doing the downloading (%windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) add an entry for the Microsoft server:
207.46.252.185      global.ds.microsoft.com

Then, in Internet Explorer, add https://global.ds.microsoft.com in the list of trusted sites under Tools > Internet Options > Security > Trusted Sites. Also, under the privacy tab click the 'Sites' button and enter https://global.ds.microsoft.com so that microsoft.com is a trusted domain.

We did this at work and saw a speed increase from about 25kbps to ~150kbps.

On an un-related note - have a look at the Project FAZR blogs - you can read about the whole idea of a democratic ISV brain-trust on Ryan Whitaker's blog.

14 Comments

  • Would this same thing apply in Australia as well? And if so, any ideas on the IP's and addresses that would work best?



    Cheers,

    Brendan

  • Brendan - I'm not sure about Austrailia. You should be able to contact your local MSDN or Partner rep at Microsoft and they should be able to tell you if there is a local mirror in AUS.

  • Well this certainly works for me - 50-60K to 110-120K



    Duncan.

  • Worked wonders for me - from 100K to 380K.

  • Wow!
    Thanks man!
    I'm in Norway, In 3 years I did only get 50-60Kbs, after this change i do now get 620kbs!!!! a 10x increase!!

    I have reported the speed issue here in Europe to MSDN several times, but I have not notest any improvement the last 2-3 years.

    If not MSDN do something soon about this speed issue will this be my last year as subscripter!!

    Anyway, again thanks for the tip, it saved my day!

    /Digi

  • I'm getting about 450 kbps with this configuration, which is about a 10-fold increase over my old speed. Thanks much!

  • Any chance the IP has changed since this original post? These changes no longer seem to help.

  • Hi,

    I still recieve only with 20-30K. Perhaps Ron's idea is correct?

  • Yes me too. I think they have changed the ip. Cause I'm getting about 35KB and I have a DS3 here at my tips(in a datacenter)

  • I think the thread is right. I did an nslookup for global.ds.microsoft.com and I got 207.46.51.39 as the IP.

  • Is this still active? I can't seem to get above 350k/s from Toronto? for CD's this is fine, but with most things being some sort of DVD image of 2GB 2.5hrs+ is not cool. Before anyone says its my connection, I pulled down the entire season of Fringe in HD (over 30GB) at a sustained 2200k/s from iTunes which also uses akamai for delivery...

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