My Silverlight Plugin Has Expired? @ SILVERLIGHT DEVELOPER'S JOURNAL

My Silverlight Plugin Has Expired?

So I went to go re-watch Scott Guthrie's video illustrating the new upcoming MVC I noticed the content is in Silverlight

By: Kevin Hoffman

Nov. 9, 2007 09:00 AM

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So I went to go re-watch Scott Guthrie's video illustrating the new upcoming MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework for ASP.NET when I noticed that the content is in Silverlight. That's fine, MS is trying so hard to push Silverlight as the answer to the world's problems that it's probably a requirement that all new content from MS come out as Silverlight content. Whatever, I can cope.... normally.

However... today I couldn't see the content. Why? Because I got a message that looks like this:

Ok fine, I can accep that somehow my Silverlight plug-in has expired or is no longer valid. But, isn't part of the beauty of Silverlight that it automatically updates itself like Flash has always done??? Oh.. I guess not. So, I'll just copy the URL and paste it into my browser and be done....WHAT?! The text in the dialog box is uncopyable. I can't select it. So, I have to type. the url. manually.

Then when I get to the URL, guess what I see? An error message indicating that my version of Silverlight plug-in is no longer valid and I need to ... *drumroll* .... go to the following URL to fix it!

So now, I am stuck in a scenario in which any Silverlight content I view is simply not rendered (as if it was an unrecognized pile of Javascript by the browser), and I cannot update the plug-in. I realize that Silverlight is still an up and coming technology but... come on... If this is a foreshadowing of the user experience people are going to get when Silverlight makes it prime-time ... what's going to keep developers from just saying to hell with it and using Flex? Well, the fact that Silverlight is .NET but... It would just be nice if Microsoft actually got the user experience right for once. I don't care if it's beautiful, I don't care if it's even smooth, but dammit it should at least WORK.

tags: silverlight pos
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Published Nov. 9, 2007 — Reads 7,480
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved.

About Kevin Hoffman
Kevin Hoffman, editor-in-chief of SYS-CON's "iPhone Developer's Journal" is one of the most popular "iPhone" and "Silverlight" bloggers on the Net. Kevin has been programming since he was 10 and has written everything from DOS shareware to n-tier, enterprise Web applications in VB, C++, Delphi, and C. He is coauthor of Professional .NET Framework (Wrox Press) and co-author with Robert Foster of Microsoft SharePoint 2007 Development Unleashed. Kevin authors "The .NET Addict's Blog" at ".Net Developer's Journal" (dotnetaddict.dotnetdevelopersjournal.com).

Kevin wrote: Actually, this throws more light on the situation - http://bl ogs.msdn.com/tims/archive /2007/11/01/silverlight-1 -1-do-you-need-to-update. aspx

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Kevin wrote: Ok, this expired problem is a bit rubbish, also looking at the source to the silverlight page - why is one of the divs where silverlight is created called "buggy-thing" Anyway, you seem to be annoyed that the link in the alert wasn't selectable. This is true, but you can do ctrl+c on the dialogue and paste it into notepad - you get all the text including text for the title and button (hopefully this still works on vista), now that text is in notepad, select the url and put it in your browser. A bit long winded but easier than having to type it manually. The page won't work though. My advice is, uninstall your version of silverlight using add remove programs and try the silverlight web page again (or www.microsoft.c om/silverlight/install.as px). You'll install the plugin fine. Seamless! *snigger*

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Frank Schmitz wrote: Sorry i had to laugh reading this one. But its just like my first (and last) .NET2-Framework experience which ended up in a corrupt installation with no chance for going forth or back (uninstall/reinstall attempts just brought up nice Windows dialog telling me that my installation is corrupt). System backup - thanks!

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Silverlight News Desk wrote: So I went to go re-watch Scott Guthrie's video illustrating the new upcoming MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework for ASP.NET when I noticed that the content is in Silverlight. That's fine, MS is trying so hard to push Silverlight as the answer to the world's problems that it's probably a requirement that all new content from MS come out as Silverlight content. Whatever, I can cope.... normally. However... today I couldn't see the content. Why? Because I got a message that looks like this:

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