Reminder: Microsoft to push Silverlight to business users this week
There are still two more weeks until Microsoft pushes its latest Internet Explorer 7 update to corporate users via its Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) patch mechanism.
But this week -- specifically on January 22 -- Microsoft will make its Adobe-Flash-alternative Silverlight available via WSUS, as well as via Microsoft Update (MU). In order to have Silverlight 1.0 pushed to users, admins will need to select it; it will be an optional, not automatic, download.
The Silverlight product family will include installers and updates for the Silverlight browser plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, according to the Microsoft Update Product Team blog. More details:
"The Silverlight 1.0 installer will be published to the Microsoft Update site and available to WSUS servers. It will be applicable for both Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 systems. For users visiting the Microsoft Update site, Silverlight 1.0 will be published as 'optional' and available to download and install interactively.
"WSUS Admins, this new product family will appear in the 'Products and Classification' selection dialog of your Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) server, so be sure to select it if you want the Silverlight 1.0 installer to synchronize down to your server. The Silverlight 1.0 installer, will be classified as a 'feature pack' for WSUS (so you’ll need to be sure you have that classification selected too), and will require EULA acceptance before approving to targeted managed clients."
Speaking of Silverlight, until recently, I was having the same problem I've seen others reporting on the Web: Repeated messages when attempting to view Silverlight content that claimed I did not have Silverlight installed on my machine. It turns out that I inadvertently had installed both Silverlight 1.0 and an alpha of Silverlight 1.1 (now known as Silverlight 2.0). Once I uninstalled the alpha of 1.1 and reinstalled the final 1.0 (thanks for the assistance, Silverlight team), my problem was solved.