Posts from August 2009

Offline Installation of Silverlight 3.0 Runtime

Richard Green on

Whilst working on the DVD for our wedding to ship out to everyone (yes, I know it was a long time ago), I’ve been trying to work out how to build an offline installer for Silverlight onto the disc.

The reason being I am shipping this DVD out to people all over the place and some of which I can’t guarantee a stable or fast network connection to download Silverlight.

Whilst looking around on the blogosphere for information about offline installations for Silverlight, I have across this posting by Tim Heuer at http://timheuer.com/blog/archive/2008/09/29/install-silverlight-2-rc0-offline.aspx.

Whilst helpful, this article is targeted squarely at developers – Not me in this case, so I had to find my own solution, but Tim was of some help.

Step One is to download the Silverlight Development Runtime from Microsoft.

Once downloaded extract the contents of the runtime to a folder. I use WinRAR to do this, but that part is up to you.

You will now have a directory which contains the following files:

  • install.exe
  • install.res.dll
  • silverlight.7z
  • silverlight.msi
  • silverlightdev.msp

If you run the intall.exe file this will start the Silverlight 3 for Developers installer however do not be fooled.
If you check Programs and Features (Add or Remove Programs for XP lovers) after the install is done, nothing is actually mentioned about developers. This simply installs the Silverlight 3 Runtime.

If you are looking for something a bit more fancy then you could do a silent install using install.exe /q which also works.

For GPO installers out there the silverlight.msi is actually an empty container and will show Silverlight in the Programs and Features list but presents a 0 KB installation size and 0.0.0.0 version number. You need to chain the silverlight.msp file which is within the silverlight.7z file to the end of the install to actually install the Silverlight Runtime.

Sky HD for Windows Media Center a Possible Reality?

Richard Green on

You will have all seen my post previously on Windows Media Center Envy over the US treatment and our lack of.

CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design & Installation) is a show taking place in one month, and Engadget HD have an article on their predictions for announcements at the show at http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/08/10/cedia-2009-windows-media-center-predictions/.

I love Engadget because if something gets posted it quite often happens to be true, so what do you think happened to my excitement level when I read this excerpt:

We don’t expect the US to have all the fun, so here’s a crazy prediction for the UK. Currently recording premium HD content on the other side of the Atlantic isn’t really an option. There is one Sky TV hack that works, but isn’t for the faint of heart as it requires constant maintenance. Well the other day we were looking through our old pictures from the eHome tour and noticed something new. Right next to a PC labelled “Draco” is a PC labelled “Horseshoe.” Now we weren’t able to find any indication of what project horseshoe was, but the same PC had another sticker with DVB-S/T on it. This just happens to be the encoding Sky TV uses. This combined with the recent partnership announcements with Microsoft and Sky has us thinking that this little white box in the picture below is actually a Sky TV HD tuner for Media Center, but we’ve been wrong before.

If the picture in the article and the text is to be believed then Microsoft’s work with Sky to include Sky Sports content within Xbox Live could be part of a larger introduction to the eHome way from Sky and we could be seeing Sky finally allow people to use Media Center with it’s TV services without almighty hacks.

If this does come, I tell thee – I care not how poor I may be or what happens, I shall own it!

Exchange ActiveSync in Exchange 2010 Beta

Richard Green on

ActiveSync is generally the most interesting and important feature for me in an Exchange release as such a heavy user of Windows Mobile and mobile email, however Exchange 2010 is something special.

Exchange 2010 is the first Exchange deployment that will be updating OTA the Outlook Mobile installation on the device to support the new features in OWA and Outlook 2010. These include much greater integration and unity with the UC (Unified Communications) piece and also adds the great new conversation view.

I think if I had to go back to Outlook 2007 now without conversation view working as it does I would be lost – Much like if I was told I had to use XP 😮

I downloaded the Exchange 2010 VHD from TechNet yesterday because I wanted to try to get Outlook Mobile on my Touch HD to update and then use that with the existing Exchange 2007 infrastructure at my current employers site.

After getting the VM running and some initial problems with device sync caused by SSL requirements, I got the device talking and Outlook on the device updated. It put a smile on my face to see the new version of Outlook on my phone, however the smile was soon taken off my face.

When I then moved the device back to the Exchange 2007 server, Outlook downgraded. I spent a bit of time searching the Exchange server for CAB files as these are used in Windows Mobile for application installation, however there was no trace of such a file, so I’m curious as to how Microsoft are updating the device.

Bing searching (or Google for this matter) turns up no trumps so I shall continue my search.

Windows 7 RTM

Richard Green on

Well I got my copy of Windows 7 RTM yesterday and I installed it during the evening.

The experience was really good.
I installed 64-bit Ultimate after toying between Ultimate and Enterprise, but I wanted to be able to play with Media Center.

Including the time to install a Dell BIOS update the whole process took less than an hour from a DVD – More like 45mins.

Read more…

Gold, Gold

Richard Green on

If your remotely attached to the world of technology, you will know that Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 went into gold build status (GA) jut over a week ago.

This week it’s the turn of Windows Mobile 6.5 to go gold.

I’ve been using Windows Mobile 6.5 for quite some time now and it’s great – A serious improvement over Windows Mobile 6.0 and 6.1 and a much welcome UI refresh and polished approach.

For anyone that’s interested, I use Miri’s WWE 6.5 ROM from here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=493911

The most recent available 23017, and much to my dismay I have been unable to confirm if this is the gold build announced this week, however Miri recompiled the ROM on the 3rd of August so it is highly likely.

Things I’m looking forward to are seeing the Windows Marketplace as this has been missing from previous WM 6.5 builds, and to see if Live Mesh works properly (see my bug https://connect.microsoft.com/LiveMesh/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=481053).

As for the remainder of the week? Well lots of people on the blogosphere and the Internet have been posting about Windows 7 RTM and changes etc – Some people have only just caught up 🙂

Me? I’m holding out for Friday when TechNet customers are going to be able to officially get their paws on the product (that’s me) so that I can rebuild to x64.

I’m sure I will blog about my experiences with the RTM build of Windows 7.