Enable Advanced Fast Start

1. In the Windows Media Services snap-in, click the server name in the console tree, and then on the Action menu, click Start. After the service starts successfully, the publishing point starts.
2. In the console tree, click the publishing point for which you want to enable the Advanced Fast Start property.
3. In the details pane, click the Properties tab.
4. In Category, click General.
5. In Property, click Enable Advanced Fast Start, and then click the Enable button.
6. In the details pane, click the Enable button.

Notes

• By default, Advanced Fast Start is turned off in Windows Media Services. When Advanced Fast Start is turned off, the startup process is the same as for Windows Media Player 9 Series or later. The content does not play until the client buffer is filled according to the Network buffering setting in the Player.
• When a client connects to a publishing point with Advanced Fast Start turned on, Advanced Fast Start manages the startup process. For example, if a publishing point sources from a folder, all files in the folder will use Advanced Fast Start.
• Advanced Fast Start works with the HTTP and RTSP protocols, and can only be used with single-bit-rate streams.
• Advanced Fast Start is only used by clients that connect to a unicast stream. For the broadcast publishing points on your Windows Media server, you may choose to allow unicast rollover, which ensures that clients that cannot access the multicast stream can still receive the content by switching to an available unicast stream. You can configure Advanced Fast Start for unicast rollover connections on the Properties tab of your broadcast publishing points. Enabling this property does not enable Advanced Fast Start for multicast client connections.