Windows Update offers up Silverlight install option
For Christmas, we bought the mother-in-law a new HP Photosmart C5280 printer to replace her old HP LaserJet 4L. She was due for a new cartridge in the LaserJet which was going to set her back $97! The decision was made to bring her printing powers to the 21st century with the HP C5280 All-in-one. The fear was that the printer was a little too fancy for her because all she needs to do is…well…print. I don’t know if you’ve looked to buy a printer recently, but you’re hard pressed to find a decent one that just prints anymore.
Anyhow… I finally got around to buying a much needed USB Hub and proceeded to install her new printer for her. As is customary every time I sit down at her computer, I ran Windows Update. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Silverlight 1.0 plug-in has made it in to Windows Update.
Notice, this is an optional update and not a required update. Microsoft is not forcing this down, however they are making it easier for you to install Silverlight. Tim Sneath posts on his blog that this move was at the behest of our customers that want to have more control in deploying Silverlight in their managed environments.
Many customers have requested help with deploying Silverlight internally, and this change will hopefully be welcomed by enterprises who want to distribute Silverlight within their organizations using their established management tools. By adding it as an optional update, enterprises can control the roll-out of Silverlight within their organizations and schedule its installation as a background task so that the perceptible impact is minimal, and ensure that end-users can view Silverlight content without requiring administrative rights to install the plug-in.
After selecting the option to install Silverlight 1.0, you are presented with the following opt-in dialog when you land on a website that is utilizing the Silverlight plug-in. Here you have option to either ‘Enable’ or ‘Disable’ Silverlight, as well as access the Silverlight license agreement.
I think this is a great move. Especially in helping our enterprise customers roll out Silverlight more effectively while maintaining the control they demand.
Thoughts?
I think this will help get Silverlight out there, but once it is installed on the majority of the desktops like Flash I am sure that most developers will still be waiting for Silverlight 2.0 which allows for C# development. And currently most of us developers are busy getting up to speed with LINQ, WCF and AJAX features that came with .NET 3.5 that we can use immediately while we can put Silverlight on the back burner for a while. Maybe once Silverlight 2.0 is out the developers will be ready to take it on. I just hope it comes with some solid tool support as well as lots of video tutorials.
The good news, Breenan, is that your time getting up to speed with LINQ, WCF and AJAX will lend itself very well to preparing for Silverlight as all of these technologies will have a part in the Silverlight playbook.
As per your comment:
“…Microsoft is not forcing this down, however they are making it easier for you to install Silverlight…”
Microsoft is hovering *dangerously* close to forcing it on you. Yes, they have an option box on their page that says “don’t show this update again”, but it DOES NOT WORK. Regardless of how many times you go through the trouble of checking it, it will show it to you EVERY TIME. As usual, Microsoft is lying to you.
Interesting, James. I don’t know if I would call it a lie as opposed to a defect in the system. I’ll pass the feedback on to the Windows Update team.