PackageDeploy.com

Recently I got a request to create a package of Microsoft Silverlight 1.0. The download available at the MS silverlight page is for version 2 Beta. After a bit of investigation I found a link which allows the download of the latest release of Microsoft Silverlight 1.0.

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=1.0

You can save the downloaded silverlight.exe safely.

Silent Installation

The /q switch can be used in the main setup (silverlight.exe). But in restricted user mode this will cause problems because before installing the silverlight.exe will extract contents to a randomly named folder in the C:\ drive (e.g. C:\70d08a988c3ad28b5d). For restricted users this will fail.

So I decided to un-compress the setup exe using the standard /X switch. The extracted files are:

• install.exe
• install.res.dll
• silverlight.msi
• silverlight.msp

The size of the silverlight.msi is 58 KB and silverlight.msp is 1.23 MB. These files can be used for silent installation of Silverlight 1.0.

Using silverlight.msi>:

In the normal MSI way we can deploy it easily.

msiexec.exe /i <path>silverlight.msi PATCH=<path>silverlight.msp /qn

Using install.exe:

The silent switch for the main installer will work here also.

Install:

install.exe /q

Uninstall:

install.exe /qu

Disabling Update

The updates are set to enabled and automatic by default. To make it disabled and Never Check for updates two registry keys needs to be deployed to the workstations.

Silverlight Updates Enabled

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Silverlight]
“UpdateMode”=dword:00000002

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Silverlight]
“UpdateMode”=dword:00000002

These keys can be deployed via active directory. But I created another msi for it and added an active setup entry to repair the installation for merging the HKCU key for each users.

Silverlight Updates Disabled

Mission accomplished!!”

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