Installing Silverlight 3-A Quick Primer

Microsoft Silverlight 3 Release to Web (RTW) was launched on July 10 at San Francisco. It is being said that it took Microsoft a year and almost ten months to release the third version of Silverlight. At the same time that Silverlight 3 was released, Microsoft Expression Blend 3 and SketchFlow also made their debut. But all that is history now. What's important is how you can get your hands on this latest release and how you can install it hassle-free on your system. Here's a quick primer on the same including a list of handy links from where to download the relevant products.

First, you need to know about compatibility.

So assuming that you are running Windows OS, here goes the list (if you are using Linux, then check the details at the Microsoft site):

Compatible Operating Systems and Browsers
 

Operating System	Windows Internet Explorer 8	Windows Internet Explorer 7	Internet Explorer 6	Firefox 2, 3	Safari 3	Safari 4
Windows Vista	Y	Y	-	Y	-	-
Windows 7	Y	-	-	Y	-
Windows Server 2008	Y	Y	-	Y	-	-
Windows XP SP2, SP3	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-
Windows Server 2003	Y	Y	Y	Y	-	-

Minimal Requirements

On a PC running Windows, the requirements include X86 or x64 500-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor with 128-megabytes (MB) of RAM.

Verifying the version

The version code of the latest release of Silverlight is 3.0.40624.0. When you click the below site, it verifies the current version of Silverlight that you are running (if any).

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx

If your system doesn't have any version at all, you will have to begin installation from scratch. If your system has Silverlight 2, then download and installation becomes a little easier. In either case, having Visual Web Developer 2008 on your machine is a must.

Following are the links for the various items to be installed:

Microsoft Silverlight 3 SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=2050e580-f1d5-4040-bb09-e6185591b6b5

Microsoft Silverlight 3 Runtime

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx

Microsoft Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9442B0F2-7465-417A-88F3-5E7B5409E9DD&displaylang=en

And once you have downloaded and installed Silverlight 3, you might want to take a look at Expression Blend 3 and the new product named SketchFlow. They can be downloaded from the below link:

Blend 3 with Sketchflow

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=92e1db7a-5d36-449b-8c6b-d25f078f3609

Once you have the Silverlight and Blend installed, you will also want to have Silverlight Control Toolkit. This is available at:

http://silverlight.codeplex.com

Finally, remember the installation order after you have downloaded all of these:

Assuming that you have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 on your machine, or at the very least Visual Web Developer 2008, the installation order is as follows:

1. VS 2008 Silverlight Tools
2. Expression Blend 3
3. Silverlight Control Toolkit

So that's it for now.

Conclusion: This article gave you a quick primer on how to install Silverlight 3.