I met a customer the other day who had concerns around the way in which Silverlight was being installed. Specifically, he compared it to the way in which Adobe installs their Flash player and his question left me a bit confused so I thought I’d write it up here on the off-chance that;

1. He’s reading and wants to mail me.
2. Someone else gets the subtle distinction and wants to mail me.

I did a quick compare/contrast on the 2 installation experiences.

I visited;

http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=2.0

and what happens is;

1. I get a little button to install Silverlight.
2. I click the button. It links to a .EXE.
3. I get the “SAVE or RUN” dialog relating to the .EXE.
4. I click “RUN”
5. I get a “Security Warning” dialog telling me that this software is signed by Microsoft.

I then visited;

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/flash/trigger/en/2/index.html

and what happens is;

1. I get an attempt to install an ActiveX control “Adobe Flash Player Installer”.
2. I allow that install to proceed.
3. I then get a “Security Warning” dialog telling me that this software is signed by Adobe.

Now, I struggle to see a major distinction between these but if you do see it and want to let me know what it is then please do that and I’ll see if I can look into how you make this do what you want.

I’d guess that what you’re looking for is an ActiveX control that installs Silverlight but it doesn’t seem to be any more/less “security mouse clicks” so I’m struggling to see whether it’d be much different from the user’s perspective?