MIX11 – Glimpse of Whats Current In Microsoft

Mix11 – Microsoft Designers & Developers Conference

Before I deep dive into various sessions of MIX 11. Let me first give a brief introduction to what MIX is about.

If you aren’t aware: MIX11 is a 3 day Microsoft’s designers and developers conference that happens once an year.

This is used as a platform by Microsoft to release/showcase various features/updates to Microsoft products for the rest of the world.

It’s also a stage used for evangelizing their products to both designers and developers who later go ahead and use all the latest features that Microsoft has released.

“MIX is a gathering of developers, designers, UX experts and business professionals creating the most innovative and profitable consumer sites on the web. Sessions range from technical, code-based topics to expert advice on content strategy, usability and design.”

An example would be ie9 platform preview that was introduced last year at the same venue and earlier in March2011 they released their final version.

Believe me MIX is not just about Internet Explorer releases. It covers updates on all other Microsoft products varying from XBOX,Kinect,Sharepoint,Azure,Office,WindowsPhone7 and HTML5 etc..

Oh how would I forget Silverlight and every other Microsoft product you might imagine that Microsoft has been recently working on.

You can know everything else about MIX at live.visitmix.com

Other such similar event is the Microsoft PDC (Professional Developers Conference) that is also an yearly event that happens specifically for developers around the world.

“The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is the definitive developer event focused on the technical strategy of the Microsoft developer platform. Attendees come from around the world to learn about the Microsoft developer platform directly from the people who make it happen.”

You can know everything about PDC at microsoftpdc.com

These events are streamed live on web and also registering for tickets get open just in case you would want to go there and watch it in person.

But the tickets just get sold in no time so if you really want to go in person you got to have preparation an year ahead. Just kidding at least couple of months before you should be able to get tickets.

In either case the sessions are all recorded for you to view at your leisure and I am here to let you know when things happen.

This year’s MIX11 starts with a Bang with some MS Biggies Keynotes. Yes, Scott Gu was there with all the action and wonderful demos that he introduced in the Developer Tools division. It’s almost expected now that he would be there for every major event. I especially loved the Silverlight 3D model of his body that was demoed at Silverlight Firestarter 2010 and this year there are some extensions to it. Silverlight Firestarter 2010 is a special event conducted that really answered lot of myth around HTML5 taking over Silverlight. And Microsoft came out in the open at this event to silence all the critics saying “Silverlight was here to stay and Microsoft is committed to it.”

2 Keynotes with a duration of 2hrs each were given by:

Dean Hachamovitch – General Manager and Head of the Internet Explorer team

Joe Belfiore – Corporate vice president and Director of Windows Phone Program Management

Scott Guthrie – Corporate vice president of Microsoft’s .NET Developer Platform

The keynotes mainly gives the taste of what this year’s MIX11 sessions/focus are going to be about. And here are a list of things that got revealed in the Keynotes:

· IE10 Test Preview released
Within just few months of release of IE9 with all the major updates now live. You can read all about ie9 from my earlier paper boat at link and you wouldn’t believe Microsoft has unleashed a test preview version for end-users to sense the next version of IE which is IE10. This was a big surprise at least for me.
Loads of improvements and further support to HTML5/CSS3 in their next version. All details can be found at:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/gg192966

To download and install ie10 platform preview version:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=196941

· HTML5:
MVC3 Supported template update to Visual Studio2010, Internet explorer performance/support enhancements to HTML5 demoed. Lots of sessions w.r.t HTML5 ranging from beginner to expert level have been demoed. Microsoft have released a live labs website where HTML5 features would be demonstrated and also enable free download of the sample source codes. They have already put on demonstration on web sockets that could be developed via HTML5.
http://html5labs.interoperabilitybridges.com/

· Windows Phone7 –

MS has announced the most awaited updates to WP7 and now famously known as the MANGO release which is free for all WP7 users that would give more features to their WP7 especially to search the app store and adding some important features like > Copy, multi-tasking, deeper integration of apps with phone, camera access and access to the motion sensor library that missed in their early release. The updates are due this fall and the keynote demonstrated some of these features that will differentiate WP7 from its competitors. The MANGO update will also bring new apps like Skype, Spotify and IMDb (with better integration) for the platform. Demo of IMBb has been demonstrated as well.

· WebMatrix & Nuget
if you are already a ASP.NET MVC fan and building websites with MVC3. Life got even better with webmatrix and nuget.
WebMatrix: It is a small development environment that uses the simple Razor syntax to create websites really quickly. You can start from a gallery of existing open source applications or start from scratch.
Nuget: it is a package manager in .Net that is released with ASP.NET MVC and this can also be downloaded separately. Its about installing opensource libraries and accessing them within VS2010. Nuget is built into Webmatrix.

· Windows Azure
I am not into Azure yet and really didn’t get a chance to plugin with Azure. But however there have been some important updates to the Azure platform that help enhance the way applications are deployed onto Azure. And specific updates to migration tools as well that will speed up the process. Also included some releases to Azure toolkit to WindowsPhone7 and how to use it. There are many more sessions on Azure.
I have found 2 blogs that will help you give an overview:

o http://blogs.msdn.com/b/katriend/archive/2011/04/14/windows-azure-news-from-mix11.aspx
I found this blog that gives an entire overview on what were the specific updates related to Azure that were being released at MIX11

o http://jamesconard.com/2011/03/18/windows-azure-platform-at-mix11/

James blog gives you a list of Azure sessions that happened at MIX11.

· Silverlight 5 Releases: SL5 Features

o Media:Hardware Decode

o Trickplay

o Remote Control
Some cool Silverlight features demoed were the 3D support in Silverlight which has got some performance bonus and the panning/zooming of SL 3D Models has got more smoother. I would reserve this category for my next post that will be specific to Silverlight and details on my favorite Silverlight sessions at MIX11.

· Kinect – for windows SDK
I had hinted in my earlier blog with the introduction of Kinect that has already revolutionized gaming with its hand free gaming console.

Future Of Windows7 Operating System

https://km.hcl.in/Paperboat/Pages/PostDetail.aspx?PostId=796

Expected its going to come very soon to Windows7 OS where users can perform gestures on their PC’s to perform tasks. It has finally happened and Microsoft has now announced officially at MIX11 that they were just about to release the windows SDK for kinect. Probably the wait is not so far after they have confirmed that they are going to release it.

I would once again re-iterate here that:
“See I said this a couple of months ago and here it is as it just happened. You can look at some live demonstrations on what could be expected from the Kinect windows sdk at my blog.” I expected it to take an year but now it has gone even shorted with MS announcing it.

http://fazal.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/future-of-windows7-operating-system-full-of-gestures-with-kinect-sdk/

More than 150 experts that also includes MS personal has given some exceptional approx. 100 sessions on various Microsoft technologies.

The list of all these sessions including the keynotes can be found and downloaded at:

http://live.visitmix.com/mix11

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/mix/mix11

Future of Silverlight – Special Event Invite

You’re invited to a very special event on December 2nd, 2010 Learn about the future of Silverlight from Corporate Vice President, Scott Guthrie and other experts, direct from Microsoft’s HQ. Hear about our plans for the next version of Silverlight, the latest developments as well as in-depth sessions on building applications with Silverlight. Registration is free – take part in-person or online.

Firestarter Live Agenda Time (Pacific Time) Presenter Session Details 8:00 AM Breakfast 9:00 AM Scott Guthrie The Future of Silverlight 10:45 AM Jesse Liberty Data Binding Strategies with Silverlight and WP7 11:30 AM Yavor Georgiev Building Compelling Apps with WCF using REST and LINQ 12:15 PM Lunch 1:00 PM Dan Wahlin Building Feature Rich Business Apps Today with RIA Services 1:45 PM John Papa MVVM: Why and How? Tips and Patterns using MVVM and Service Patterns with Silverlight and WP7 2:45 PM Tim Heuer Tips and Tricks for a Great Installation Experience 3:30 PM Mike Cook & Jossef Goldberg Tune Your Application: Profiling and Performance Tips 4:30 PM Jaime Rodriguez Performance Tips for Silverlight Windows Phone 7 5:15 PM After Party! You can now view the recordings online at link.

Windows Phone 7 Series Released Today

Ok the much awaited Windows Phone 7 finally makes its debut today.

I had earlier posted the announcement of Windows 7 way back in February and now it has finally released.

You can read the earlier email below or visit my blog link to know more about Windows Phone 7.

There are many updates and lot has changed since its announcement earlier this year.

Most interesting fact is you can build in mobile apps using Silverlight and if you are a .Net developer already you would be excited to build Mobile applications using Silverlight whose code-behind is .NET

You can read the press release at link.

Windows Phone Websites

http://www.windowsphone7.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/default.aspx

Interesting Silverlight Articles

So finally with the huge data on the web. We keep reading various articles and someday want to know where I read some ‘X’ article. My memory is bad and so I thought I would keep posting all the links in this post as I come across in my day today journey. In the process will also save a purpose to share it with public as well.

Silverlight

• www.microsoft.com/silverlight/developer
• http://www.silverlight.net
• “Data Validation with Silverlight 3 and the DataForm” at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee335695.aspx
• Silverlight TV http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/SilverlightTV/
• Silverlight Stats  http://www.riastats.com/

C#

• “Some Best Practices for C# Application Development (Explained)” at http://www.kunal-chowdhury.com/2010/10/some-best-practices-for-c-application.html

Expression Blend and Sketchflow

• www.microsoft.com/expression

Visual Studio

• www.microsoft.com/visualstudio

RIA Services

• http://silverlight.net/getstarted/riaservices/

PRISM

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd458809.aspx
• http://www.codeplex.com/CompositeWPF

MEF

• http://www.codeplex.com/mef
• Building Composable Apps in .NET 4 with the Managed Extensibility Framework” at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee291628.aspx

Printing

http://silverlight.net/learn/videos/all/printing-api-basics/

What’s Changed in SL4:
http://wpfslguidance.codeplex.com/releases/view/28278

Silverlight Business Application Case Study Whitepaper:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/C/8/7C87A1AE-E500-471F-91C9-EA289360C12C/Building%20Business%20Apps%20with%20Silverlight.docx

MVVM Best Practises:

http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SilverlightKits
http://johnpapa.net/silverlight/5-minute-overview-of-mvvm-in-silverlight/

Silverlight Toolkit’s drag/drop feature:
http://themechanicalbride.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-with-silverlight-toolkit-drag-and.html
WinForms to XAML UI Converter
http://blogs.windowsclient.net/rob_relyea/archive/2010/04/16/winforms-to-xaml-ui-converter.aspx

· Latest blog post from Davide (about v.6 beta)

· Pointer to project web page

Silverlight Design-Time-Extensibility:
http://blogs.silverlight.net/blogs/justinangel/archive/2008/11/17/silverlight-design-time-extensibility.aspx

Silverlight Video Experiences:

· http://www.nextsmooth.com – features: cube video selector, video magnifying glass, bandwidth meter

· http://research.microsoft.com/tuva – overall integrated video experience

· http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

Sketchflow-in-90 seconds:

http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/LauraFoy/Sketchflow-in-90-seconds/

Silverlight Media Framework:
http://smf.codeplex.com

http://amp.codeplex.com (For absolute accessiblity)

Silverlight & Services Best Practices:
http://microsoftpdc.com/Sessions/CL06

Silverlight & WPF – Split Button , Context Menu:
http://blogs.msdn.com/delay/archive/2010/04/19/developer-test-case-customer-win-using-contextmenu-to-implement-splitbutton-and-menubutton-for-silverlight-or-wpf.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/llobo/archive/2006/10/25/Split-Button-in-WPF.aspx

Articles on Visual State Manager:

http://blogs.msdn.com/expression/archive/2008/07/11/more-articles-on-visual-state-manager.aspx

Design or Coding Guidelines or Best practices for Silverlight/.NET:
XAML guidelines – http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Continuum/XAML-Guidelines-Part-1/

http://groups.google.com.au/group/wpf-disciples/web/wpf-and-xaml-coding-guidelines

Framework Design Guidelines – http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/czefa0ke.aspx

Brad Abrams

Krzysztof Cwalina’s

wrote the book

Magellan
Magellan is a lightweight MVC framework that makes it easy to build WPF navigation applications.

http://magellan.codeplex.com/
http://www.paulstovell.com/magellan

AuthN/AuthX with Navigation in SL4 – David Poll

http://www.davidpoll.com/2010/01/01/opening-up-silverlight-4-navigation-authenticationauthorization-in-an-inavigationcontentloader/
Writing a Profiler with Silverlight 4
http://blogs.msdn.com/davbr/archive/2010/01/21/writing-a-profiler-for-silverlight-4.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/seema/archive/2010/01/28/pdc-vs2010-profiling-silverlight-4.aspx
Silverlight Optimization for Performance Enhancement
http://blogs.msdn.com/tims/archive/2009/03/24/building-an-optimized-graphics-intensive-silverlight-application.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/seema/archive/2008/10/08/xperf-a-cpu-sampler-for-silverlight.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/seema/archive/2009/03/24/summary-of-the-20min-perf-talk.aspx
Silverlight 4 OOB Application that uses COM Interop:
http://cid-404c2ff7814e399f.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Silverlight%20beyond%20the%20browser
MIX10 – CL10
http://r.ch9.ms/sl4
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/NewFeatures/OutOfBrowser/
http://channel9.msdn.com/learn/courses/Silverlight4/SL4BusinessModule8/
Testing WPF Applications:
http://windowsclient.net/wpf/white-papers/wpf-app-quality-guide.aspx
http://testapi.codeplex.com

Sharepoint & Silverlight
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ssv

MIX10 – A 3day Microsoft’s Designers and Developers Conference Videos

MIX10 – A 3day Microsoft’s Designers and Developers Conference Videos

If you have missed out the wonderful live sessions of MIX10 that happened recently. You can download all of them in a single go!!!

Using Mike Swanson’s downloader and renamer

If you’d like to download all of the keynote and session content, download a recent build of cURL (~250K), and extract it to your folder-of-choice. Then, download MIX10Downloader.zip (1.39KB) and extract the MIX10Downloader.bat file to the same folder. From a command prompt, start MIX10Downloader by passing it one of the following parameters: WMVHIGH, WMV, MP4, PPTX. Then wait. For files that aren’t available, cURL will download a file that is around 1,245 bytes in size (if you change the extension to .htm and open it, you’ll see that the file is simply an HTML "not found" error page).

To rename the files, first, download MIX10Renamer.zip (4.09KB). Then, extract the MIX10Renamer.bat file to the folder that contains your downloaded files, and from a command prompt, type MIX10Renamer WMV to rename all of the .WMV files to the full session title. By changing the parameter, you can also rename your PPTX and MP4 files.

All the videos are also available to be viewed at http://live.visitmix.com/Videos

Especially if you are a Silverlight Geek you wouldn’t want to miss out on these sessions. And to point out just a few of them that are available for download.

Get in-depth exposure to exciting new Microsoft technologies. Watch the MIX10 sessions and download the videos and presentations here. See the Day 1 and Day 2 keynotes on demand. Featured sessions from MIX10 include:

· Overview of the Windows Phone 7 Series Application Platform

Charlie Kindel

The new Windows Phone is coming! Get a high-level overview of the new application platform and a complete picture of the developer story. Learn about the developer tools, the application frameworks, the support for Silverlight, and the support for XNA.

· 10 Ways to Attack a Design Problem and Come Out Winning

Robby Ingebretsen

See the design process in action as we walk through the creation of two (or three) apps from beginning to end. We’ll start with design requirements and talk about finding inspiration. We’ll show you how we created and documented the design through comps and wireframes. Finally, we’ll even take a look at unique coding techniques that allowed us to realize the vision. If you’re interested in the design process and want to see it in action, don’t miss this talk!

· Stepping Outside the Browser with Microsoft Silverlight 4

Ashish Shetty

You can do a lot with a Silverlight 3 out-of-browser application – so what more do you need? Maybe file system access, the ability to host HTML content, the ability to customize the application chrome, greater control over the out-of-browser window, notifications, access to local components and the ability to playback rights protected media? If so, then this is the session for you to come find out about the new Silverlight 4 out-of -browser features and see some of the amazing things you can do with those features.

· Total Experience Design

Paul Dawson

Your Mission: We need great creative ideas, we need them implemented, and we need to make customers love them, all in the space of six months. You have zero budget. Go! Under huge pressure to innovate, how do you get people to buy in to your ideas and then actually get them done? How do you avoid getting side-tracked by blue-sky thinking whilst delivering a project to time and budget yet still realize the ambitions we set in that blue-sky thinking? How do you even justify doing ‘something different’ or focusing on Experience in the first place? See how to get Experience-based innovation going, how to get it to flourish, how to define its success factors and measure the "Return on Experience".

· Understanding the Model-View-ViewModel Pattern

Laurent Bugnion

The Model-View-ViewModel pattern (also called MVVM) is a hot topic in today’s Silverlight and WPF world. This pattern facilitates modern development techniques such as separation of concerns (decoupling), unit testing and test driven development, work with modern tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft Expression Blend and more. In this session, Laurent (a user and promoter of MVVM since 2006) introduces this pattern to you with many demos. We talk about the basic components of a modern Microsoft Silverlight or Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application, and of additional helpers that will make your life as a developer much easier.

· Beyond File | New Company: From Cheesy Sample to Social Platform

Scott Hanselman

The web has changed and there’s a new way of thinking about your applications. You can’t just write some HTML and CSS anymore and expect to be the next Twitter. Hear how to make your site socially relevant in the new decade (the ’10s?) This session includes everything from Microsoft ASP.NET MVC2, to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and OData, JSON services and blog flair, microformats, and leverage ASP.NET and Microsoft Silverlight to create rich user experiences. Let’s stop messing around and start changing the world. Or at least giving Nerds a place to eat dinner.

· The Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework

Michael Scherotter, Alfonso Corretti

Come hear about the Microsoft Silverlight Analytics Framework, which is a new extensible framework for integrating web analytics into Silverlight applications. See how it addresses the challenge of tracking out-of-browser and offline application and supporting multiple analytics services simultaneously. Learn how to use Expression Blend to visually instrument designs and do A/B testing. Also learn how to use components built by a number of analytics and control vendors in Web, video and rich client scenarios.

You can also follow more Silverlight updates at my blog at http://fazal.wordpress.com/category/silverlight/

Silverlight Out Of Browser – OOB Application with setup icons and everything else..

Silverlight Out Of Browser – OOB Application with setup icons

http://geekswithblogs.net/lbugnion/archive/2010/02/06/setting-up-icons-for-a-silverlight-oob-application.aspx

There is a small issue that I faced while I followed the above article where the OOB settings didn’t allow me to view my icons from the resources folder even after setting the “Build Action property” of images as “Content”. So Jeff’s blog helped me out to do the manual way by configuring the

“OutOfBrowserSettings.xml” file to tweak the feature manually.

My OutOfBrowserSettings.xml finally looked like

<OutOfBrowserSettings ShortName="OOBApp Application" EnableGPUAcceleration="False" ShowInstallMenuItem="True">

<OutOfBrowserSettings.Blurb>OOBApp Application on your desktop; at home, at work or on the go.</OutOfBrowserSettings.Blurb>

<OutOfBrowserSettings.WindowSettings>

<WindowSettings Title="OOBApp Application" />

</OutOfBrowserSettings.WindowSettings>

<OutOfBrowserSettings.Icons>

<Icon Size="16,16">Resources/abstract_04q_16X16.jpg</Icon>

<Icon Size="32,32">Resources/abstract_04q_32X32.jpg</Icon>

<Icon Size="64,64">Resources/abstract_04q_64X64.jpg</Icon>

<Icon Size="128,128">Resources/abstract_04q_128X128.jpg</Icon>

</OutOfBrowserSettings.Icons>

</OutOfBrowserSettings>

More information on tweaking these properties could be found at

http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2009/11/out-of-browser-tutorial/

There is more info in the above link like:

· Show install menu

· Implementing all the necessary things to make Out of Browser shine

· Offering a button experience for taking the app Out of Browser

· A smoother notification method

· Out of Browser and Application Library Caching: Mutually Exclusive

· Consider a Splash Screen if you have a large app that is Out-of-Browser enabled

Premier of Silverlight TV

Proud to announce the premier of Silverlight TV airing on Channel 9! You can watch the first episode right here where Keith Smith (Silverlight Group Program Manager), along with host John Papa (Silverlight Evangelist), discuss Silverlight 4′s out-of-browser applications. Keith demonstrates how to set up a Trusted application using the out-of-browser features, interact with the file system, integrate with COM and debug out-of-browser applications!

The mission of Silverlight TV is to provide premium Silverlight content through exclusive interviews with the members of the Silverlight product teams, partners and community leaders. Please help us get the word out about Silverlight TV by blogging, tweeting, emailing and shouting out loud! (I can’t hear you!)

Silverlight TV, Episode 1: The Joys of Trusted Out-of-Browser Applications in Silverlight 4

A list of important links for Silverlight TV as well as a FAQ. Feel free to forward this information.

Key links for Silverlight TV
	Watch Silverlight TV Shows on Channel 9 Watch shows and catch the latest news in our Silverlight TV blog
	Silverlight TV RSS Feed Subscribe to the RSS feed for the show on Channel 9.
	Silverlight TV on Twitter Follow @SilverlightTV on Twitter for updates, alerts for new shows, and to submit comments and feedback.

FAQ about Silverlight TV:

Q. What is Silverlight TV?

A. Silverlight TV is a new show in Channel 9’s lineup. Go behind the scenes at Microsoft with John Papa and learn what the Silverlight product team is dreaming up next. See exclusive interviews with the Silverlight product team, watch how community leaders are using Silverlight to solve real problems, and keep up with the latest happenings with Silverlight. Catch the inside scoop on Silverlight with Silverlight TV!

Q. Where can I watch Silverlight TV?

A. Silverlight TV airs on Channel 9

Q. Who would benefit from watching Silverlight TV?

A. Anyone interested in technical “how-to’s”, key Silverlight features, experiences from the real applications, and great examples of Silverlight.

Q. How long is each show?

A. Each show lasts about 10-15 minutes, depending on the topic.

Q. How often will Silverlight TV air?

A. Silverlight TV runs on an bi weekly schedule, however bonus shows will air prior to major events and announcements. For example, Silverlight TV will air once a week during the run-up to MIX10.

Q. How do I request a topic for Silverlight TV?

A. Send a message to @SilverlightTV on Twitter.

Q. How can I help Silverlight TV?

A. Blog, Tweet, Email, and Shout! Let all of your channels know about the new show! Feel free to forward this information to anyone who might be interested in Silverlight.

The content of this blog is from John Papa (Senior Evangelist for Silverlight) himself and you can visit his blog here.

Data Mining using Silverlight

Cool demo at http://www.data-applied.com/Web/TryNow/Video.aspx

Silverlight Installation Problems / Troubleshooting Issues:

This post should help you to not only get you started with all the pre-requisites needed but also would include some handy information regarding troubleshooting issues that most commonly faced during installations.

Updated the links as per the latest installation files:

 Visual Studio 2010 RTM here

 Expression Blend 4 Release Candidate from here

 Windows Phone Developer Tools CTP – April Refresh from here

 Expression Blend 4 for Windows Phone Preview 2 from here

 Silverlight Tools here

 Silverlight April Toolkit from here

 WCF RIA Services RC2 from here

 WCF RIA Services Toolkit April 2010 from here

Installation Requirements and Resources:

I will start with giving the most common/basic URL’s where you need to start to install everything related to Silverlight information.

1. Firstly the Silverlight plugin/ runtime that could be installed by going to the link

   http://www.silverlight.net/getstarted

   You can install either the MAC or the Windows Runtime by clicking on the required buttons.

   

   Just in case you need the download links for these runtimes.
   Silverlight Developer Runtime
   Developers can install the Developer Runtime to get additional debug and error information. Choose the getstarted link you will find all the pre-requisites that are required to start doing Silverlight stuff. Mac or Windows version.
   

2. Secondly in the same

   This should include (Any Servicepacks-SP1 etc. required for Visual Studio2008, Silverlight Toolkit, Developer Runtimes, SDK, Silverlight tools, Expression Blend, DeepZoomComposer, RIA services)

   Make sure that they are installed in the same order as mentioned in the website to ensure you don’t miss anything or fall into pit of unexpected errors.

3. All the most important download links that are needed to install can also be found at the technical resources section which provides more information as to what each download is meant to install.
   The Moto of this link is to give a complete spilt view of all the tools that are really required.

   http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/technical-resources/default.aspx

   Note*: You can even ignore approaching this link if everything goes smoothly with Step2.
   

Bad Installation (or) Issues while Re-Installing / Manual clean-up of broken installation:

It’s always good to check what is the problem that is arising and then act accordingly and most important to act relevant to the issue that arises while installation.
But on saying that I would suggest doing a fresh install / re-installing on most cases when you have already spent enough time on trying to find out what the root cause of the issue is.
(Or Else I can just guarantee that you will keep struggling endlessly and to your surprise you might end up so long that Microsoft will release its newer version as well. Just for the funnier side of it.
I only meant that you need not spend much time trying to figure out where the issue could be especially when your goal to just go create a simple Silverlight project. Obviously we aren’t working on some Silverlight test team for Installations.)
But it’s a good practise to notify Microsoft Corporation if you really find out some major bug or something that seemed unusual experience. And any suggestions/bugs/feedback can always be posted at Silverlight forum.
Now you suspect a bad installation which could occur due to some million reasons. The action item would be to uninstall the entire Silverlight related stuff (Step1) one after the other.
If you still face some problem after reinstalling the Silverlight and something still doesn’t work then you might have to consider fixing the broken install via. the registry way. Bob Pomeroy clearly explains in one of his blog on how to achieve this.

You don’t have to go anywhere because here is the link for your reference:
http://blogs.msdn.com/rpomeroy/archive/2008/06/10/how-to-manually-clean-up-a-bad-silverlight-installation.aspx

Visual Studio Service Pack (SP1) / Silverlight Tools & Toolkit Installation Issues: (No Internet Scenarios)
There will be situations where you might face a problem with installing the Visual Studio Service Packs and the Silverlight tools which are having a dependency on one another.
Particularly if you have restricted internet connectivity and the installation doesn’t happen smooth enough. In those cases ensure that you first install the service pack for visual studio which is mandatory. If you have a bad installation ensure that you uninstall it and then re-install before you proceed for the Silverlight Tools/Toolkit installation. But after successful installation of the service pack if you are still unable to install the SL Tools/toolkit. You might have to consider an offline installation of Silverlight Tools where we will have to manually extract all the contents of the Silverlight tools.exe and then install all the runtimes and Servicepacks required. The same would be the case if you are unable to install the service pack SP1 for Visual Studio. You might have to install the Service packs manually once you extract the silverlighttools.exe as mentioned by Tim Huer. Please note that if you are using Visual Studio Web developer express edition then you might have to install the webdeveloper service pack which exists in the same folder after you extract it.
http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/09/29/install-silverlight-2-rc0-offline.aspx
Installing Visual Studio Tools Offline:
http://k2underground.com/blogs/blacktop/archive/2009/08/28/installing-silverlight-3-visual-studio-tools-offline.aspx

Important Note while Upgrading/Re-installing a higher version of Silverlight:
It is very likely that people get into trouble so often while they are upgrading from one version of Silverlight to another. Especially when Microsoft is doing some rapid development to get the new version Silverlight builds released so quickly. So the key point here when you get an issue while upgrading/re-installing is to check if you have installed the versions properly and there are no conflicting versions. You might have to go and check the version that you just installed from your Control Panel Add/Remove Programs using a Windows XP OS & Control Panel/ Programs using Vista/Win7. Just select the particular Silverlight product (SDK, plugin, Toolkit etc.) and version information should be visible there. Ensure that there are no conflicting versions over there. Mainly no two different versions should co-exist. On most cases this causes Visual Studio to enter into “Obsolete Silverlight version error”. So ensure that you either uninstall one of the versions or maybe both then re-install it.
For Example:
If you have a plugin with a version 3.0.406… SDK shouldn’t be 3.0.405 or anything lower or higher.
But all the sdk’s, toolkits, runtimes should be of the same version. This you can verify in the Control Panel/Add Remove programs section as mentioned earlier.

These are the most generic issues that we face during installations. This was just an attempt to help you guys out with the most common scenarios. I would like to know if there are more scenarios that you might come across and how you had fixed that. So that we can keep updating the post for everyone’s perusal.
Issues VIA Web Platform Installer:
http://blogs.msdn.com/jamlew/archive/2009/03/24/understanding-issues-installing-silverlight-3-via-web-platform-installer.aspx

Hope this has helped. Your comments are always welcome and you are free to refer this post to others who might be facing similar issues.

Finally A Nice compile of Installation Error Codes by Amy:

http://blogs.msdn.com/amyd/archive/2009/03/19/silverlight-tools-installation-error-codes.aspx
Deploying Silverlight In Enterprise: (Deployment Guide)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tims/archive/2007/09/28/deploying-silverlight-in-the-enterprise.aspx

How to fix “Object reference error” Problem with Visual Studio (VS2008) after reinstalling Silverlight3

If you install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack or .NET 3.5 Service Pack, then the Silverlight Projects may not be working properly. Even at times when you uninstall all versions of silverlight and then reinstall the latest SL RTM version your VS2008 does’nt seem to work as expected especially while creating SL projects and executing them. Its high time I had been receiving this myself and I thought I should just blog it myself so that it could be helpful for others who face the similar scenario.

Problems:
When you create a new silverlight project you get a message “Object reference not set to a instance of an object” When you try to load existing project it tells that visual studio can not open this type of project.

Solution1:

1. Open the command prompt and go to the folder
   

   C:\ProgramFiles\MicrosoftVisualStudio9.0\Common7\IDE
   
   Or You can just go to the Visual Studio Command Prompt
   

   
   

2. type devenv /resetskippkgs
   
3. close the Visual Studio Window that will open after completion of previous command.
   
4. type devenv /setup
   (This is optional as it worked for me by just doing step2,3)
   
5. After the execution of previous command is complete open Visual Studio.
   

Reinstalling All the Silverlight SDK’s:

Even if the above doesn’t work try to keep binging for similar scenario’s before you finally try uninstalling all Silverlight related stuff (SDK’s, Silverlight tools, Silverlight plugin’s etc.) and then re-install them back in order from http://silverlight.net/getstarted/default.aspx

Or to be more specific

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/technical-resources/default.aspx