Understanding Issues Installing Silverlight 3 via Web Platform Installer

With the release of the Web Platform Installer 2.0 beta at MIX last week, you can now install any of the cool development packages we’ve been releasing with a single combined application.  However, there are a couple issues that can come up, especially around the Silverlight Tools packages. 

If your Silverlight Tools package fails to install, WebPI unfortunately doesn’t give you a very useful message.  You’ll probably see something in the log file that looks like:

 DownloadManager Information: 0 : Adding product Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio Beta (www.microsoft.com/web/webpi/2.0/WebProductList.xml?121) to cart
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Product 'www.microsoft.com/web/webpi/2.0/WebProductList.xml?121' was already in cart.
DownloadManager Information: 0 : No SQL to configure
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Setting current install to 1
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Starting install sequence
DownloadManager Information: 0 : downloading file 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=146358' to: D:\Foo\Silverlight3_Tools.exe
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Starting EXE install for product 'Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio Beta'. Commandline is: 'D:\Foo\Silverlight3_Tools.exe /q'
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Waiting for process: 220 - D:\Foo\Silverlight3_Tools.exe
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Install exit code for product 'Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio Beta' is 1
DownloadManager Error: 0 : Install return code for product 'Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio Beta' is Failure
DownloadManager Information: 0 : Product Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio Beta done install completed

This really only tells you that the installation failed.  For some possibilities as to the problem, see Amy Dullard’s blog post about Silverlight Tools Installation Error Codes.

If your problem is not listed, you’ll need to look at the Silverlight Tools installation log, which is located under your temp directory.  The file name will look something like: Silverlight 3.0 Tools Beta 1_<date>_<timestamp>.html.  If you open this and then scroll to the bottom, it should give some information about the error.

If you can’t figure out the problem from the Silverlight Tools installer log, leave a comment and I’ll help you resolve the issue.