This page provides additional information about the downloads available for Silverlight.

Silverlight Runtimes

Currently, there are two runtimes available for users to experience Silverlight content.

• Microsoft Silverlight 1.0
• Microsoft Silverlight 2 Beta 1

Both runtimes support rich media capabilities and enable fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality audio and video to all major browsers including Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer running on the Mac or on Windows. The designer experience remains largely the same for both runtimes as well. The main difference resides in the developer experience. The Silverlight 2 Beta 1 runtime introduces support for.NET languages such as Visual Basic and Visual C#.

The Features Matrix below provides an overview of which runtime is required when viewing Silverlight applications.

Silverlight Runtimes - Feature Matrix

Features	Silverlight 1.0	Silverlight 2 Beta 1
2D Vector Animation/Graphics
AJAX Support
Cross-Browser (Firefox, IE, Safari)
Cross-Platform (Windows, Mac)
Framework Languages   (Visual Basic, Visual C#, IronRuby, Ironpython)	-
HTML DOM Integration
HTTP Networking
Isolated Storage	-
JavaScript Support
JSON, REST, SOAP/WS-*, POX, and RSS Web Services (as well as support for Sockets)	-
Cross Domain Network Access	-
LINQ to Objects	-
Canvas Layout Support
StackPanel, Grid and Panel Layout Support	-
Managed Control Framework	-
Full suite of Controls (TextBox, RadioButton, Slider, Calendar, DatePicker, DataGrid, ListBox, and others)	-
Deep Zoom Technology	-
Managed HTML Bridge	-
Managed Exception Handling	-
Media – Content Protection	-
Media – 720P High Definition (HD) Video
Media – Audio/Video Support (VC-1, WMV,   WMA, MP3)
Media – Image Support  (JPG, PNG)
Media Markers
Rich Core Framework (e.g. Generics,     collections)	-
Security Enforcement	-
Silverlight ASP.NET Controls     (asp:media, asp:xaml)
Type Safety Verification	-
Windows Media Server Support
XAML Parser (based on WPF)
XMLReader/Writer	-

SILVERLIGHT TOOLS

Microsoft Silverlight enables designers and developers to easily use existing skills to deliver media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web with role-specific tools: for designers, Microsoft Expression Studio, and for developers, Microsoft Visual Studio.

Microsoft Expression Studio takes the many sides of a designer’s creative personality to a whole new level. These professional design tools provide a greater flexibility to create sophisticated applications and content, while also providing compatibility with powerful developer tools to facilitate the development process of the completed site.  Expression Blend 2 August Preview delivers a set of features that enable designers to create compelling user experiences for Silverlight.  Expression Design enables the ability to create rich visual elements for Silverlight applications.

Silverlight offers a flexible and consistent programming model that supports AJAX, IronPython, IronRuby, and .NET languages such as VB and C#, and integrates with existing Web applications.  Developers can take advantage of the current version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to make building Silverlight application easier than ever.

While both suites of products, Expression Studio and Visual Studio, are within the realms of building the next generation of applications, they target different roles and metaphors when building your solution. Expression Studio has been built for designers to create the graphics and user interaction in a Silverlight application, whereas the Visual Studio family of products targets developers who add application logic and code.

Developing Silverlight Experiences

Microsoft Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008

The add-on to create Silverlight applications using .NET and Silverlight 2 Beta 1 and for creating Silverlight 1.0 Web sites with Visual Studio 2008. This install also installs the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 Runtime and the Silverlight 2 Beta 1 SDK. Visual Studio 2008 Standard or above is required.

Microsoft Silverlight 2 SDK Beta 1

If you are not installing the Silverlight Tools Beta 1 for Visual Studio 2008, you can install the Silverlight 2 SDK which contains documentation and samples for building Silverlight 2 applications along with ASP.NET controls that allow you to integrate Silverlight functionality into your ASP.NET applications.

Designing Silverlight Experiences

Expression Studio 2

NOTE: Support for creating Silverlight 1.0 applications is part of Expression Studio 2. A preview version of Expresion Blend 2.5 is available for designers who wish to take advantage of the new capabilities in the Silverlight 2 beta 1.

Expression Design

Expression Design is a professional illustration and graphic design tool that lets you build compelling elements for both Web and desktop application user interfaces. Creating rich visual elements for Silverlight applications is made simple using Expression Design. XAML is automatically generated for elements that are supported on the Silverlight platform and all other visuals are automatically rasterized and included as bitmap objects.

Expression Blend 2

Expression Blend 2 is the professional design tool to create engaging, Web-connected, user experiences for Silverlight. It empowers a designer with features to create better usability and better experiences on the Web. By leveraging the full power of Silverlight, designs can break out of the limits in the browser.

Expression Encoder

Expression Encoder enables rapid import, compression and Web publishing of digital video imported from a variety of popular formats, including AVI and QuickTime, into WMV. Capable of running on the desktop or Windows Server, Expression Media Encoder is a template-driven system that integrates seamlessly into existing Web publishing workflows for both live and on-demand content delivery.