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Avoiding Flash (.flv) 404 Errors on IIS 6 (Windows 2003)

Posted on 07/15/2009 at 11:11 am by Kevin Wentworth
Viewed 13,938 times | 1 comment

An interesting thing happens on Windows 2003 Server (IIS 6) when you try and play a .flv file through an embedded shockwave player...nothing.  Well, actually you get a 404 error. 

Fixing the .flv 404 error is simple

All you need to do is tell the IIS server that the MIME type for .flv exists.  Then, the web server can send the appropriate MIME-TYPE header when needed.

Adding the .FLV MIME type to Windowss 2003 / IIS 6 

You can modify the MIME type on the entire server by editing the properties for that server:

1. Right-Click in IIS Admin on Computer Name
   • Don't click on any of the web site names.  Instead, click the parent of all web sites, indicated by the actual server name.
2. Select Properties (from the right-click menu)
3. Click the MIME-TYPE button in the dialogue window
4. Add an extension for .flv, setting type to flv-application/octet-stream
5. Run iisreset (not iisrestart) from the command prompt

I wanted to post this so I wouldn't forget.  Thanks to the original author- source article.