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Description of Persistent and Per-Session Cookies in Internet Explorer

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Article ID:223799
Last Review:January 24, 2007
Revision:3.2
This article was previously published under Q223799

SUMMARY

Internet Explorer 5 provides separate security controls for persistent cookies and for per-session cookies. A cookie is a method for a Web server to maintain state information about users as users navigate different pages on the site, and as users return to the site at a later time.

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MORE INFORMATION

Persistent cookies are stored for a length of time that is set by the Web server when it passes the cookie to Internet Explorer. These cookies are used to store state information between visits to a site.

Per-session cookies are used to store state information only within a session. These cookies are cached only while a user is visiting the Web server issuing the per-session cookie and are deleted from the cache when the user closes the session.

Per-session cookies are frequently used by Active Server Pages (ASP) running on Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0 or later. These cookies store session information as the user navigates to multiple ASP pages in a site.

For additional information about how to customize your cookie settings in Internet Explorer 5, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
196955 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196955/EN-US/) How to Set and Customize Cookies Settings in Internet Explorer 5

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REFERENCES

Cookies are defined in RFC 2965, "HTTP State Management Mechanism". RFCs can be found online at the following Web site:
http://www.rfc-editor.org (http://www.rfc-editor.org)

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APPLIES TO
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 Service Pack 1
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 2
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 128-Bit Edition
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
•Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, when used with:
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
  Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Standard Edition
  Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition
  Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Developer Edition
  Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition
  Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
  Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition

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Keywords: 
kbinfo KB223799

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