Microsoft has recently updated both the Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh and Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha Refresh for Visual Studio (July 2007).   It is recommended that you upgrade to the latest versions as they have addressed a number of the issues people on these forums have been hitting with respect to 1.1 installation and development.

To verify that you are running the latest versions:

• Runtime:  Right click on a Silverlight control in the browser.  Choose Silverlight Configuration.   The version number should be:  1.1.20816.0, with the 816 being the key numbers.
• Tools:  Find the file at:  <Drive>:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight.dll.  Next, right click and open the properties dialog. In the details panel, your looking for a file version of "9.0.20706.18". The key number your looking for is the final "18", if it says "12" then you need to upgrade.  

The following are some additional issues & resolutions. 

Issue:  After installing the Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh, you continue to get the “Get Silverlight” medallion when trying to launch a 1.1 application.
Resolution:   There are several things you can do to address this:

• Ensure that you installed the 1.1 version of Silverlight & not the 1.0 version.   You can check this by looking at the 1st 2 digits of the Silverlight version number.
• Ensure that you have the latest version of 1.1 (linked above) installed.  
• If you just recently installed 1.1 and had an existing version of Silverlight installed, you made need to restart your browser.
• If all else fails, close all browser, uninstall Silverlight through Add/Remove Programs (just called Programs on Vista) control panel & finally re-install Silverlight again.

Issue:  When installing Silverlight tools for VS you are told "You must install Microsoft Visual Studio codename "Orcas" Beta 2 before installing this product."
Resolution:  The Silverlight tools require the Standard, Pro or VSTS skus. As part of setup you need to include the C# and/or VB options, and the Visual Web developer options. All are selected as part of the default installation.  Silverlight tools cannot be used with the express sku’s as they do not have the requisite components.

Issue:  In Visual Studio, when creating a project: Access to the path “C:\...\SilverlightProject.zip\TestPage.html.js” is denied
Resolution:  This error is typically caused by the AVG virus scanner. If you have the free version then it is not possible to turn this option off. If you have the full version you can configure it to ignore the rule for the .js file extension for the folders where you will create the projects.

Issue:  When building a C# project : "The referenced component 'xxxx' not found" where The referenced components are agclr, system etc.
Resolution:    This can occur for two reasons:

• The Silverlight 1.1 alpha runtime has not been installed. It can be installed from Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh. 
• The 1.1 alpha runtime was updated with a new GUID, so Visual Studio couldn’t find the path to the assemblies. There is an updated copy of the tools available at Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha Refresh for Visual Studio (July 2007), that fixes the problem. You can verify the version of the tools by looking at the file version (in the details tab of the properties window) of either the setup or \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight.dll. You want a version of 9.0.20706.18, check the last number is 18.  Please uninstall the old edition of the Silverlight tools and install the update.

Issue:   When creating a VB project: Error HRESULT E_FAIL has been returned from a call to the COM component
Resolution:  This can occur for two reasons:

• The Silverlight 1.1 alpha runtime has not been installed. It can be installed from Silverlight 1.1 Alpha Refresh.
• The 1.1 alpha runtime was updated with a new GUID, so Visual Studio couldn’t find the path to the assemblies. There is an updated copy of the tools available at Microsoft Silverlight Tools Alpha Refresh for Visual Studio (July 2007). You can verify the version of the tools by looking at the file version (in the details tab of the properties window) of either the setup or \Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Silverlight.dll. You want a version of 9.0.20706.18, check the last number is 18.   Please uninstall the old edition of the Silverlight tools and install the update.

Issue:  Problems debugging a project that involves the downloader object or calls to web services
Resolution:  Silverlight has the restriction that if the Silverlight application is launched with a file:// url, then it can’t make network calls. The Silverlight project has a testpage.html, which will be launched from the filesystem to test the project. To enable testing with a web server, the Silverlight project should be linked into a website which can then be debugged. You can do this using the following steps:

• Add a website to the solution.
• Right click on a folder in the website and use the “Add Silverlight link” command to link the output from the Silverlight project to the website. Click Yes to enabling Silverlight debugging from the website
• Copy the testpage.htm, js, and silverlight.js to the website or use the asp:xaml control in an aspx page.
• You should now be able to set the website as the startup project.
• F5 Should now launch the page in the website in the browser under the debugger and using the web server for the web project.

Terri Morton
Program Manager, Telligent

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