I have a PocketPC based client appliation for a desktop VFP app. The client is written in C# using the compact framework and communicates with the database via SOAP web services.

I have run into a problem with connection limits. Many of my customers are using Windows XP Pro because there are typically only two or three client workstations. By default, IIS is only configured to allow 10 http connections concurrently. I have discovered how to increase that to 40, which is the hard coded upper limit to XP Pro.

The problem I am running into is that connections are not efficiently recycling. With 8 PocketPC clients calling the web service once every 3 seconds, I am consistantly going above the connection limit of 40 connections. I have tried decreasing the connection timeout in IIS admin to 5 seconds, but it doesn't seem to help. I still have connections that are live for 30 seconds after I close the application. I tried to disable keep-alives, which kills each connection immediately after it is finished, but then the web service doesn't work at all.

Is there any way I can solve this without adding the cost of a full blown server to each installation? Is there any way to force the client to re-use connections? Has anyone dealt with this in the past?

Thanks,

Paul R. Moon
Business Software Solutions