WPAD location in Windows 8.1

Question

We are retiring our TMG server for internet proxy.  Currently we use WPAD with DHCP option 252 and it has been working well.  However we want to slowly transition over to the new system which does not use proxy.  I have removed the DHCP option
for group however they are still going through our proxy server instead of just using the default route for HTTP and HTTPS traffic. 
For Windows 7 I've created a script and that seems to work on removing wpad but it does not work in Windows 8.1 mainily because I seem to not find the location of the wpad.dat file.  Doea anyone know where IE places the file?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Does anyone know where IE places the file?
This may be helpful:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ieinternals/archive/2013/10/11/web-proxy-configuration-and-ie11-changes.aspx
Tech_Fiend   5 Feb 2014 5:18 PM
Do you know if IE (or any other browsers for that matter) downloads the PAC file to the local machine?  If so, do you know is it located? OS: Win7 64bit / IE9 or WinXP / IE8
[EricLaw] Your best bet is to watch file writes using SysInternals' Process Monitor, because the behavior will vary by OS and by the browser version installed.
On Windows 8.1 with IE11, the "WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service" running inside a SVCHost.exe instance will download and cache the PAC file to a rudimentary cache: the file is written to a randomly-named *.cache file inside the c:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\winhttp
folder.
In IE8 on Windows XP, I see the PAC file getting cached to %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\random\proxy[2].pac.
Don
(Please take a moment to "Vote as Helpful" and/or "Mark as Answer", where applicable.
This helps the community, keeps the forums tidy, and recognises useful contributions. Thanks!)