Windows OS offers many different approaches to adding a proxy configuration but it is a bit confusing

Question

In Windows 10 it is possible to:

• Add a proxy server using WPAD in DNS,DHCP
• Add a proxy in the environment variables HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY
• Add a proxy using NETSH
• Add a proxy in the Internet options that used to belong to integrated IE11
• Add a proxy per browser in Edge (and other browsers)
• (And per application as an explicit proxy configuration for that app only)

And perhaps there are even more that don't come to mind at this time of writing.

Now the question is, I cannot get an exact picture for using a proxy where the software or windows service (in system context) would (be able to, and why) use which proxy configuration.
So in what scenario(s) is NETSH used exactly, and when is a proxy configured in environment variables used? How does that actually work internally? Are they used/tried sequentially?

Please advise.

Answer 1

Hi @Martijn van der Ven

NETSH is used to configure the proxy server of a given device.

For example:

netsh winhttp set proxy proxy_server_ip:proxy_port

A message displays showing the current WinHTTP proxy set to the specified proxy IP address and port.

I'm not sure what you're asking in this context?

You may find this article helpful:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/configure-proxy-server-settings

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