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Windows Media Services provides several new logging capabilities and features that are unavailable in previous versions. This topic compares the log file structure and plug-in features of the current version of Windows Media Services to those of version 4.1.
Windows Media Services now logs downstream server data as well as client data. Downstream Windows Media servers that are acting as distribution or cache/proxy servers upload a log to the origin server at the completion of the stream. This information is recorded in the log file.
Additionally, efforts to reduce the latency of streaming broadcasts have made it necessary to separate the streaming and rendering portions of client log data because they may no longer take place at the same time.
Previous versions of the Windows Media server only supported ANSI output of log files. This most recent version supports both ANSI and UTF-8 text formats. You can adjust the properties of the plug-in to toggle between the two formats.
The log file name structure in Windows Media Services is now configurable. Through the use of environment variables and wildcard characters you can specify a file name structure that represents the data contained in the file. Use the default settings to create log file names that are compatible with version 4.1.
The current version of Windows Media Services ads six new headers to the log file:
For more information on log headers, see Log file header reference.
In addition to the status codes used in version 4.1, the Windows Media Services 9 Series uses:
In some cases, users of previous Windows Media server versions have set up automated parsing of log files. The additional information and organization provided by the WMS Client Logging plug-in are likely to be incompatible with such processes. If you wish to continue receiving log files in version 4.1 format, you have the option of turning off the updated format in the plug-in properties.