Silverlight Install Modes

Did you know that there are two install modes for Silverlight -- inplace installation (aka 'Direct') and indirect installation.

When you build your site or application using Silverlight, you can use the 'inplaceInstallPrompt' property in your call to Sys.Silverlight.createObject and set it to true or false.

Here's an example:

 function createSilverlight()
{  
    Sys.Silverlight.createObject(
        "plugin.xaml",                      // Source property value.
        parentElement,                      // DOM reference to hosting DIV tag.
        "myControl",                        // Unique control id value.
        {                                   // Control properties.
            width:'1024',                   // Width of rectangular region of control in pixels.
            height:'530',                   // Height of rectangular region of control in pixels.
            inplaceInstallPrompt:false,     // Determines whether to display in-place install prompt if invalid version detected. 
            background:'white',             // Background color of control.
            isWindowless:'false',           // Determines whether to display control in Windowless mode.
            framerate:'24',                 // MaxFrameRate property value.
            version:'0.9'                   // Control version to use.
        },
        {
            onError:null,                   // OnError property value -- event handler function name.
            onLoad:null                     // OnLoad property value -- event handler function name.
        },
        null);                              // Context value -- event handler function name.
}

This will create a banner icon for Silverlight that looks like this:

Clicking on this banner will take your users to https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight where they can download and install the Silverlight runtime.

Alternatively you can have a direct install experience, by setting the inplaceInstallPrompt property to 'true'. This will result in a different banner, that looks like this:

As you can see this contains a Silverlight license agreement, which you agree to by using this banner to download the Silverlight runtime.

In this case, your users will start downloading the Silverlight runtime as soon as they click the banner, instead of being directed to the https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight site first.