Control Multicast support and set IGMP version in Windows Server 2008 & Vista

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to Windows Reference RSS feed Thanks for visiting!

In Windows 2008 and Windows Vista, we can control the Multicast support, infact to be precise, the level of Multicast support and the version of the IGMP protocol that is supported from Windows Registry.

By default, Windows 2008 and Windows Vista supports IGMPv3 and fully pariticipates in IGMP where it can both send and receive IPv4 multicast packets.

The following procedures should help you to control multicast support and IGMO version in Windows Server 2008 & Windows Vista

1. Click Start -  Search and type “regedit”. This launches the WIndows Registry.

2.  In the registry, navigate to the following registry key

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\Tcpip
\Parameters

Set IGMP Version

In the right pane, right-click and select New – DWORD (32-bit value) and set its name as “IGMPVersion” and set it to one of the following values:

2 – Support IGMP version 1

3 – Support IGMP version 2

4 – Support IGMP version 3 (default)

Should you decide to revert to the defaults, simply delete the key.

Set Multicast support level

In the right pane, right-click and select New – DWORD (32-bit value) and set its name as “IGMPLevel” and set it to one of the following values:

0 – Disable Multicast support

1 – Support only sending IPv4 Multicast packets (do not receive)

2 – Fully participate in IGMP. Support sending and receing Multicast packets (default)

Should you decide to revert to the defaults, simply delete the key.