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Authentication (Windows Media Format 11 SDK)

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[The feature associated with this page, Windows Media Format 11 SDK, is a legacy feature. It has been superseded by Source Reader and Sink Writer. Source Reader and Sink Writer have been optimized for Windows 10 and Windows 11. Microsoft strongly recommends that new code use Source Reader and Sink Writer instead of Windows Media Format 11 SDK, when possible. Microsoft suggests that existing code that uses the legacy APIs be rewritten to use the new APIs if possible.]

The reader object can handle network authentication challenges, including digest authentication and NTLM authentication. In some cases the application must provide the user's credentials through a callback interface:

  • Digest authentication: The application must implement the IWMCredentialCallback interface, as described later in this topic.

  • NTLM authentication: The reader automatically responds with the user's logon credentials. If the current user is authorized to log on to the server, the application does not have to do anything. If the user does not have authorization, the application must implement the IWMCredentialCallback interface.

    Note

    Windows Media Services version 4.1 does not support NTLM authentication through a proxy server. NTLM authentication requires several client-server exchanges on the same connection, and version 4.1 does not keep a persistent connection with the proxy. Windows Media Services 9 Series in Microsoft Windows Server 2003 supports NTLM authentication through a proxy server, as long as the proxy supports keep-alive connections.

     

As noted, in some cases the application must provide the user's credentials. This occurs through the IWMCredentialCallback interface, which has a single method, AcquireCredentials. To support authentication, implement this interface in your application. The reader object queries for this interface by calling QueryInterface on the IWMReaderCallback pointer that it received from the application in the IWMReader::Open method. If the reader object needs to get the user's credentials, it calls the application's AcquireCredentials method.

If the credentials will be sent over the network without encryption, the reader sets the WMT_CREDENTIAL_CLEAR_TEXT flag in the pdwFlags parameter. This gives the application an opportunity to warn the user that his or her credentials will be sent in plain text.

Otherwise, the reader object automatically encrypts the credentials before sending them over the network. The application can return them to the reader object in plain text. In addition, if the reader object sets the WMT_CREDENTIAL_ENCRYPT flag, it means the reader supports getting encrypted credentials from the application. In that case, the application can either return the credentials in plain text, or else encrypt them itself using the CryptProtectData function, which is described in the Platform SDK documentation. If the application encrypts the credentials, it must set the WMT_CREDENTIAL_ENCRYPT flag in the pdwFlags parameter before the method returns.

Generally, it is not necessary to encrypt the data, because the reader object encrypts the data if necessary. However, encryption might be useful if the application keeps the user name and password in memory, because it prevents an attacker from inspecting a memory dump of the process.

IWMCredentialCallback Interface

IWMReader Interface