How to: Specify the percentage of virtual users that use web cache data
Applies to: 
Visual Studio 
Visual Studio for Mac
Note
This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here
After you create your load test with the New Load Test Wizard, you can change the scenarios properties to meet your testing needs and goals by using the Load Test Editor. For a full list of the load test scenario properties and their descriptions, see Load test scenario properties.
Note
Web performance and load test functionality is deprecated. Visual Studio 2019 is the last version where web performance and load testing will be fully available. For more information, see the Cloud-based load testing service end of life blog post. To reduce the impact on users some minimum support is still available in Visual Studio 2022 Preview 3 or later. Users should also note web performance and load test functionality only supports Internet Explorer which is not available on Windows 11 and some versions of Windows 10. Read more on Internet Explorer Lifecycle policy.
The Percentage of new Users property is set in the Properties window. You edit load test scenario properties in the Load Test Editor.
The Percentage of new Users property affects the way in which the load test simulates the caching that would be performed by a web browser. By default, the Percentage of new Users property is set to 0%. If the value for the Percentage of new Users property is set to 100%, each web performance test run in a load test is treated like a first time user to the website who does not have any content from the website in their browser cache from previous visits. Thus, all requests in the web test, including all dependent requests such as images, are downloaded.
Note
When the same cacheable resource is requested more than once in a web test, the requests are not downloaded.
If you are load testing a website that has a significant number of return users who are likely to have images and other cacheable content cached locally, then a setting of 100% for Percentage of new Users property will generate more download requests than would occur in real-world usage. In this case, you should estimate the percentage of visits to your website that are from first time users of the website, and set Percentage of new Users property accordingly.
To specify the percentage of new users for a scenario
Open a load test.
The Load Test Editor appears. The load test tree is displayed.
In the load test trees Scenarios folder, choose the scenario node you want to change the new user percentage value for.
On the View menu, select Properties Window.
The scenario's categories and properties are displayed in the Properties window.
Set the value for the Percentage of New Users property by entering a number for the percentage of new users.
After you have finished changing the property, choose Save on the File menu. You can then run your load test using the new Percentage of New Users value.