Microsoft KB Archive/932474

= How to maintain the ASP.NET session state =

Article ID: 932474

Article Last Modified on 2/16/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft ASP.NET 2.0
 * Microsoft ASP.NET 1.0

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INTRODUCTION
The Microsoft ASP.NET session state is process-dependent. Anything that affects the process may result in a lost session state. This article discusses how to maintain the ASP.NET session state.



MORE INFORMATION
The following are two common scenarios in which the session may behave unpredictably:  When you click a hyperlink in an application that is hosting the WebBrowser control, a new page opens in Internet Explorer. In this scenario, the session cookie is lost, and you may have to log on again. This behavior occurs because Internet Explorer is a different process than the application process. A session cookie cannot be shared between processes.

To maintain the session state in this scenario, you can use the NewWindow2 event to open the new page in another form in the application. This event is triggered by the WebBrowser control. For more information about how to use the NewWindow2 event, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

311282 How to use the WebBrowser control NewWindow2 event in Visual Basic .NET

 You open an ASP.NET-connected application in Internet Explorer. The application sends a Microsoft Outlook e-mail message that contains a hyperlink. In this scenario, you assume that the application will obtain a new session when you click the hyperlink in Outlook. However, Outlook uses the same session as the ASP.NET-connected application uses. This behavior occurs because the new page that is opened in Internet Explorer uses the existing Internet Explorer process instead of creating a new process. This behavior is by design because using an existing process saves resources and time.

To maintain the system state in this scenario, you can use a query string to store the state of the application. For more information about how to store a state in an active server pages application, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

175167 How to store state in Active Server Pages applications



