Microsoft releases the final Silverlight 4 bits

By | April 15, 2010, 10:51am PDT

Summary: The release-to-the-web (RTW) version of Silverlight 4 is available for free download, as of April 15, as Microsoft officials said it would be earlier this week.

The release-to-the-web (RTW) version of Silverlight 4 is available for free download, as of April 15, as Microsoft officials said it would be earlier this week.

One important caveat for developers, as acknowledged on the Silverlight download site:

Visual Studio 2010 can be installed side-by-side with Visual Studio 2008 SP1. For Silverlight 4 development, you will need the released version of Visual Studio 2010. Please read the known issue on installing Visual Studio 2010 if you already have the Silverlight 3 SDK installed.”

Silverlight is a browser plug-in that supports multimedia content. It also is a slimmed-down, cross-platform version of Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) programming model. Each successive iteration of Silverlight includes more and more WPF functionality (and vice versa).

Silverlight 4 adds support for data binding, enterprise networking and printing, and lots of other features that are likely to make the platform more appealing to folks writing not just single-function, lightweight Web apps, but enterprise apps, as well. Microsoft’s Tim Heuer has links to the full list of Silverlight 4 features on his blog.

Silverlight also is Microsoft’s primary development environment for Windows Phone 7 devices, but the current Silverlight  mobile dev platform is a hybrid of Silverlight 3 and Silverlight 4, not pure Silverlight 4. Microsoft officials have said that Silverlight won’t be running (as an Internet Explorer plug-in, at least) on the first Windows Phone 7 devices that ship by this holiday season.

It’s on to Silverlight 5… and none too early to start suggesting features….

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Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

Biography

Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

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Talkback Most Recent of 46 Talkback(s)

  • 64 bit?
    You'd be hard pressed to find a 32 bit Windows operating system in a new computer, but MS won't put out SL64?

    Last I've seen, it's still "something they're thinking about".

    Do you have any other info than that? Microsoft is a bit sketchy on it.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    rshores
    15th Apr 2010
  • ZDNet Blogger

    why no 64-bit SL
    Hi, Yes, "sketchy" is a good description. MS said earlier this year it had no immediate plans to do 64-bit SL, with claims being made that most users are running 32-bit browsers.

    http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/why-microsoft-isnt-working-on-silverlight-64-bit.ars

    I guess that's on the SL5 wish list for many... It does seem odd, as you note, that with all the push behind getting users to go 64-bit with Windows, MS is still doing 32-bit with SL... MJ
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Mary Jo Foley
    15th Apr 2010
  • Catch 22...
    The 64-bit version of Internet Explorer doesn't do Flash or Silverlight, so every site that uses them, the user has to quit IE 64-bit and go back to the 32-bit version and re-open the site...

    That might give Microsoft a clue as to why most people are still using 32-bit browsers.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    wright_is
    18th Apr 2010
  • RE: Microsoft releases the final Silverlight 4 bits
    Microsoft releases the final Silverlight 4 about it is bank that website attacked from the site support from any soldier site to the light home page is great bits
    ZDNet Gravatar
    musdahi
    12th Oct
  • RE: Microsoft releases the final Silverlight 4 bits
    Microsoft releases the final Silverlight 4 a graphic from monitor of a interior from design home a videos that can you a sport from any car a corporate of high capability bits
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Juliety
    28th Oct
  • Because most users are running a 32-bit browser ...
    ... until users start needing to shift over to a 64-bit browser, there's little point in building 64-bit add-ons like Flash and SL.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
    15th Apr 2010
  • Most users are running a 32-bit browser
    because of Flash.

    Some ASLR circumvention techniques work on 32
    bit browsers because of the limited address
    space. An important security such as ASLR would
    be much (much!) more efficient (harder to
    circumvent) on 64 bits.

    So, Microsoft releasing a 32-bit only
    Silverlight client will only make it harder to
    have users switch to a 64 bit browser.

    Bad!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    honeymonster
    15th Apr 2010
  • Totally with you ...
    ... I would LOVE for Microsoft, Adobe and many others to produce 64-bit versions of their add-ins.

    Alas, this is going to be an eternal chicken and egg discussion until someone tips the scales.

    I hope that MS and Adobe will get their respective acts together and each ship their 64-bit components around the same time so that users will experience less disruption when moving to the 64-bit browser of their choice.

    Of course, this will also mean that Firefox, Chrome and Safari should also plan to do the same.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023
    15th Apr 2010
  • easy, start nagging sites that use the plugins that are not able...
    to run in 64 bit browsers. Enough people does it then flash and the like will start loosing users and will have to do something to prevent loosing too many users. edit for bad punctuation.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dougogd@...
    15th Apr 2010
  • Yes, I totally agree
    The ONLY reason I use a 32-bit browser is because of the lack of 64-bit Flash and Silverlight.

    It is annoying beyond words that the Silverlight team REFUSES to build a 64-bit version. They are fully aware that people want it, yet continue this absurd claim that they won't do it because "people aren't using 64-bit browsers."

    DUH! They weren't using 64-bit operating systems either, at least until Microsoft made one.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Speednet
    16th Apr 2010
  • ZDNet Gravatar
    shadfurman
    17th Apr 2010
  • You don't like security do you....
    64 bit browsers are more secure than 32 bit browsers so why can't we use them. Because there are no plug ins for them.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dougogd@...
    15th Apr 2010
  • 64bit SL is slower
    According to Joe Stagner at MS this week at DevConnections, there's still A LOT of work to be done getting 64bit SL to be faster than 32bit; in fact, it's quite a bit slower. Keep in mind that SL-4 (32bit) is highly optimized and designed with the smallest runtime (download) size possible. It's not just selected WPF features ported over. Be happy for now that it has multi-threading, unlike the competition. happy
    ZDNet Gravatar
    kidfess
    16th Apr 2010
  • No FOSS trolls yet?
    Let's see how soon the usual naysayers jump out their woodwork.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    LBiege
    15th Apr 2010
  • Well this is comming from a windows user....
    Linux is better it is just not supported by much software. The only reason to use windows. No I don't use Linux but only because i don't like to reboot for everything.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    dougogd@...
    16th Apr 2010

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