How To Enable File Buffering for Windows Media Services 9 Series

This article describes how to update the Windows Media Services namespace file to change the file buffering behavior of the server.

Warning This article contains information about editing the namespace. Before you edit the namespace, verify that you have a backup copy that you can restore if a problem occurs. If you edit the namespace incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall any product that uses the namespace. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result if you incorrectly edit the namespace can be solved. Edit the namespace at your own risk.

By default, the server buffers only the most requested files to memory. By default, buffering occurs when 5 or more clients are requesting the same piece of content. If the server has a lot of available memory, you may improve server performance if you change this value in the ServerNamespace.xml file.

Note Do not make these changes on production servers until you determine the effects on the overall server performance and on the experience of the end user. This setting might hinder the end-user experience in some circumstances.

To change this value, follow these steps:

1. Stop Windows Media Services: run the command net stop wmserver
2. Change to the directory where the namespace file is located: %SystemRoot%\system32\windows media\server
3. Open the ServerNamespace.xml file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and then locate the WMS File Data Source node in the namespace.
4. Locate the Properties sub-node under the WMS File Data Source node.
5. Add the following sample code under the Properties sub-node:

    <node name="Use File Buffering" opcode="create" type="int32" value="0x1" /> 
   

   This namespace value can be one of the following:
        0x0 -- Buffer only the most requested files (Default)
        0x1 -- Buffer all files.   Use ONLY if you have a lot of RAM on the server

6. Restart Windows Media Services: run the command net start wmserver

The following is another representation of the value that you can set in the ServerNamespace.xml file: