Silverlight 2 Beta 2 TO Silverlight 2 Final Release - A Complete Step By Step Guide for Upgrading your Development Environment
Posted by: Suprotim Agarwal ,
on 10/17/2008,
in
Category Silverlight 2, 3, 4 and 5
Abstract: The much awaited final release of Silverlight 2 was shipped by Microsoft on the 14th of October, 2008. This step by step guide will help you upgrade your development environment from Silverlight 2 Beta 2 to the final release of Silverlight 2. This guide suggests you the exact steps for a smooth installation. The guide can also be used by those who have just started out with Silverlight 2.
Silverlight 2 Beta 2 TO Silverlight 2 Final Release - A Complete Step By Step Guide for Upgrading your Development Environment
The much awaited final release of Silverlight 2 was shipped by Microsoft on the 14th of October, 2008. This step by step guide will help you upgrade your development environment from Silverlight 2 Beta 2 to the final release of Silverlight 2. This guide suggests you the exact steps for a smooth installation. The guide can also be used by those who have just started out with Silverlight 2. So let us get started.
Note: For those doing a fresh installation of the development environment, make sure you have at least 3-4 GB of free disk space to complete all these steps with ease.
Step 1: If you have Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview, then you must uninstall it. On a Vista machine, go to Start > Control Panel > Program and Features > Select Expression Blend 2.5 June 2008 Preview > Click on Uninstall.
Clicking 'Yes' uninstalls Blend 2.5 June Preview.
Step 2: The next step is to install Visual Studio 2008 with SP1. Choose the option below that fits your scenario:
Option 1: I do not have Visual Studio 2008
Option 2: I have installed Visual Studio 2008 but have applied a hotfix to it in the past
If you have previously installed a Visual Studio 2008 pre-release or a Hotfix, then you must run the Service Pack Preparation tool before installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1. This tool will remove the pre-release updates and programs from your system that could prevent Visual Studio 2008 SP1 from installing successfully. The preparation tool can be found over here and is a ~15MB download. The steps while running the preparation tool will look similar to the following:
Products affected by the software update
Click Next and Accept License Terms. The tool will then progress and remove the pre-release updates.
If the verification goes on well, you get the message “The Software Update has been successfully installed”. Now move to Option 3.
Option 3: I have installed Visual Studio 2008 but do not have SP1 installed
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 can be downloaded from here. You can choose to do either an online .exe Web Install (536KB) or an offline .iso install (831.3 MB). I chose to do an offline install.
Note: It’s a good idea to run the Service pack preparation tool explained in Option 2 before moving ahead.
The installation steps will look similar to the ones shown below:
Click Next and accept the License Agreement. The installer will then progress and install SP1.
Warning: Be ready with your original Visual Studio 2008 installation disk/iso/media. I was prompted for the original disk while installing SP1. The message read “The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or other removable disk that is not available”. The installer looks for vs_setup.msi and gave me a tough time during this step. I finally found my original disk and continued with the installation.
Note: If you are installing the set up on Windows Vista, then close all programs including the Windows Sidebar, Machine Debug Manager - mdm.exe (from Task Manager) etc., else you will get a warning dialog similar to the following:
If the install goes on well, you get the message “The Software Update has been successfully installed”.
Option 4: I already have Visual Studio 2008 with SP1
Move to Step 3.
Click Next and accept the License Agreement.
If you have Silverlight 2 Beta 2 SDK and Tools installed, this step detects and removes the beta version.
Note: Visual Studio 2008 SP1 must be installed before installing the Silverlight Tools. Also make sure that you have the Visual Web Developer feature installed.
Once the installation is over, you can create Silverlight applications In VS 2008. Open Visual Studio 2008 > File > New > Project > Select Silverlight (using Visual Basic or Visual C#) in the ‘Project Types’ pane > Select a template.
Step 4: (Optional) This is an optional step but I would highly recommend you to install Expression Blend 2. Expression Blend 2 is a professional interactive design tool that works well with Visual Studio 2008 and helps you create rich desktop and web applications using XAML, Silverlight and .NET. You can get a trial version over here Microsoft Expression Blend™ 2 Trial.
Note: Make sure you have Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and Expression Blend 2 installed before installing the Blend 2 SP1.
Voila! The installation took some time (and bandwidth too), but at the end, it was worth it! If all the steps went on well, you are now ready to create some rocking Silverlight applications. I will be creating a few, what about you? I hope this article was useful and I thank you for viewing it.
This article has been editorially reviewed by Suprotim Agarwal.
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Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of
DotNetCurry,
DNC Magazine for Developers,
SQLServerCurry and
DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books
51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and
The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.
Suprotim received the prestigious Microsoft MVP award for 17 consecutive years, until he resigned from the program in 2025. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that offers Digital Marketing and Branding services to businesses, both in a start-up and enterprise environment.
Get in touch with him on Twitter @suprotimagarwal or at LinkedIn