Error Message: HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected

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This article was previously published under Q262635

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SYMPTOMS

When you try to browse an Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 Web site that is running on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, the following error message is displayed at the top of the browser:

The page cannot be displayed
There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time.

The following error message is also displayed further down in the browser:

HTTP 403.9 - Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected
Internet Information Services

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CAUSE

The error messages occur when more than ten users are trying to connect to IIS 5.0. The version of IIS 5.0 that is included in Windows 2000 Professional is limited to ten connections.

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If more than ten connections are needed, use the version of IIS 5.0 that is included in Windows 2000 Server.

If you use IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 Professional or IIS 5.1 on Microsoft Windows XP Professional, disable HTTP keep-alives in the properties of the Web site. When you do this, a limit of 10 concurrent connections still exists, but IIS does not maintain connections for inactive users.

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STATUS

This behavior is by design.

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MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about running IIS 5.0 on Windows 2000 Professional, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

262632 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/262632/ ) PWS does not run on Windows 2000 Professional

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