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I'm running my SL5 application (that has been working well so far) on Windows 8, and it is not going well. I have a background picture which usually does not render correctly, almost everytime I navigate my background (including the controls over it) just goes white till I resize IE, then it re-paints (what makes it stranger is that the parts that goes white is outside of the navigation frame, why is it getting repainted). (Chrome renders fine)

When I run my application out-of-browser my login screen pops up and works correctly but after the login screen closes it looks like the gray background of the login screen remains behind and I cannot click on anything, resizing makes no difference, it looks like every control has been disabled.

I have updated my NVidia Drivers to the latest, don't think its a display driver issue though.

Anyone else had these issues? Anyone else running SL5 fine on windows 8? (Looks like I'll be downgrading back to windows 7 soon)

Jerry Nixon
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Adriaan Davel
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3 Answers3

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Silverlight should run great on any desktop browser in Windows 8, just like it does on Windows 7, Vista, and Mac. The underlying runtime is 100% the same. That does not mean you may not find a glitch with a graphics driver, but it means you shouldn't - and likely won't.

I did want to make a clarifying point, however, that Silverlight is not part of the Modern Internet Explorer (the Metro Internet Explorer). Only a subset of Flash is supported and that is only supported on white-listed sites.

This means Silverlight solutions that you might have expected to run on the Surface RT (running Windows RT - or Windows on Arm) will not run (as there is no SL runtime). And, I think we can all have a collective moan and ask, together, "Why not?" To which there is no acceptable answer.

The theoretical goal, of course, is to write native Windows 8 apps. If you want to write something web based you should write it in HTML5. That's the official word. I think we all know that HTML5 has a ways to go in order to catch Silverlight, but it is what it is. Can't change some things.

Jerry Nixon
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  • Thanks for the info, knew it all and my best guess as to why SL doesn't run in 'Metro': MS wants to scare SL developers into writing RT apps, they really are that desperate. I'm going to test my display drivers more. This application ran fine on Win 8 RC on this same laptop... – Adriaan Davel Dec 07 '12 at 05:59
  • No, that's not the reason. There are still many valid use cases to build projects targeting Silverlight. You are right that we want developers to learn WinRT. But until everyone runs Windows 8, developers shouldn't focus ONLY on WinRT. – Jerry Nixon Dec 07 '12 at 19:54
  • you show that you are from MSFT, this is the first clear information that I have seen about Silverlight from someone in MS, is that an official statement? I love Silverlight and see a clear case for its continued existence but I do not see Microsoft see that. – Adriaan Davel Dec 10 '12 at 01:47
  • We just released Windows Phone 8. I guess that means that Windows Phone 8 is dead, huh? You have Silverlight 5.1. It's awesome. What is it you want me to say? There will be a SL 6? Is that really relevant as to if 5.1 is a good choice for a project you have today? PS: Of course Windows Phone is not dead because we just released a new version. Why then did we say that for SL? In the end, on XAML matters. XAML is the big deal here. Meanwhile, yes, SL exists. There's no "official" word if ADO.Net will continue. Will you still use it? I hope you see my point. – Jerry Nixon Dec 11 '12 at 00:52
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    Is succession planning important, yes of course. Is SL 6 important to SL 5, yes of course. If I recommend to my customers that we must use SL for their new project, and next year it is announced discontinued where does that leave my reputation? I need to plan my skills development, how can I do it on MS technology if I don't know if it will be relevant 1 / 2 / 3 years from now? Saying that XAML is going to stay means nothing. Yes SL uses XAML but to switch a project between XAML offerings is not easy, if I'm doing a SL project it will stay SL. – Adriaan Davel Dec 11 '12 at 07:39
  • Hopefully your reasons for recommending SL will be based on something. And hopefully those will remain true as time passes of course. The need for multi-platform being the primary for SL. I would not recommend a SL project right now just because multi-platform is not compelling to me. HTML5 isn't bad. But click-once WPF is all I ever need for XAML desktop development without multi-platform. Don't get me wrong. I hear you. Only you know your situation. – Jerry Nixon Dec 11 '12 at 23:19
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    My reasons for SL: client-side code language is the same as server side (reuse is great for productivity), advanced client-side caching (not sure how HTML / Java script will do this but I have done some brilliant in memory stuff in SL), having access to client memory and cpu can do wonders for scalability, COM access is cool (I've done some pretty neat things with Excel & Word), multi-platform is less important for me as all my customers are MS based so far (but I do like that). As an LOB developer I believe SL is the best technology available today, that is assuming it will still exist... – Adriaan Davel Dec 12 '12 at 05:29
  • It seems like you have some good thoughts and reasons. Those are the sort of things that cause developers and designers to select technologies in the place. Although when you find SL as an answer I find WPF, it sounds like your reasons for SL are valid. And if your tech matches your skills then it also contributes to productivity. It sounds like your customers are benefiting from your advice. SL will be supported for better than 10 years, so I think the overall risk (insofar as support) is trivial. – Jerry Nixon Dec 12 '12 at 19:11
  • Thanks. You cleared some things up for me. I still don't understand the reasons for Microsoft allowing Flash in the metro-IE10 but not Silverlight. This is not good for my Regex Hero customers. Hopefully they'll change their mind at some point and add Silverlight support. – Steve Wortham Jun 27 '13 at 22:00
  • Let me suggest a reason, and this you should take to heart. Silverlight has a dedicated runtime for every platform it supports. Windows on Intel and Mac. The Silverlight team is small now, handling bugs and security vulnerabilities, mostly. Who is going to write the new runtime for Silverlight that support Windows on ARM chips? It would have to be written, it can't just be used. Make sense? That means to put it in the browser, like Flash, it had to be written or the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT are more confusing. Windows could not wait. The SL runtime was simply not added. :) – Jerry Nixon Jul 02 '13 at 21:28
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I have had no issues with any of my Silverlight 5 apps running on Windows 8 - I focus mainly on line of business apps but have some graphical and otherwise apps that run fine as well.

Jeremy Likness
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I'm only marking this as the answer to close the case, what the actual answer was to the problem we will never know. The solution: automatic updates. After much hassles with getting automatic updates to actually go through, my machine is now working well.

Adriaan Davel
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