Pros & Cons of installing MS Silverlight for Windows 7??

I have W7 Home installed in my HP's laptop with 2GB RAMs and AMD Dual core. Recently I have been reminded through MS update that I could choose to install their "Silverlight" update in my laptop. I have been reading briefly on the MS Site about the Silverlight features and vaguely know what it is. However I have no ideas whether it would slow down or/and have other ill effects on my laptop IF I chose to install it, and if I might to beef up my laptop (such as increased its memory or graphic capability) prior to installing it. Besides, I have very limited HD capability (such as NO HDMI and Blue-Ray) in my current laptop! Therefore is it really worth this possible troubles at all for me???

Thank you for your comments in advance.

P.S: The same comments may apply for installing MS's Windows 7 SP1 as I been thinking of its possible "cons" prior to its installation as well.

IMO, you only need Silverlight if you browse sites (or have web apps) that use it.

SP1 is a good install - on my laptop, the used RAM after booting dropped by around 200Mb (admittedly, it has 4GB so I wasn't particularly worried about RDM usage pre SP1)..

It's Micro$oft's equivalent to Flash. If you access a site that needs it, it will offer to install it.

i got it on my computer, but I don't think it have been used. Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash, or that is how Microsoft saw it, but it failed.

Why do people still put $ in the spelling of Microsoft and Sky still? seems a bit childish to me.
they are companies, they are there to make money, if they don't make money they will cease to be simple as that and then where will we be?

I would not miss Sky, but I think the world would miss Microsoft, how ever much you like or dislike them.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i got it on my computer, but I don't think it have been used. Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash, or that is how Microsoft saw it, but it failed.

Why do people still put $ in the spelling of Microsoft and Sky still? seems a bit childish to me.

Why do people simply repeat other people's posts adding no new information?

Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash.

Thought you'd like to know.

Silverlight is used by Eurosport Player and by netflix.

You missed the $ sign

Sorry, I'm British and deal in £.

$ don't flash (lol) before my eyes.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i got it on my computer, but I don't think it have been used. Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash, or that is how Microsoft saw it, but it failed.

Why do people still put $ in the spelling of Microsoft and Sky still? seems a bit childish to me.
they are companies, they are there to make money, if they don't make money they will cease to be simple as that and then where will we be?

I would not miss Sky, but I think the world would miss Microsoft, how ever much you like or dislike them.

windows is still reasonable value for money, as microsoft have yet to copy what others do and charge annual subscriptions for updates so because of that its good value, eg. XP lasted for about 10 years for its price.

Technet was brilliant value till microsoft nerfed it, even the nerfed version is good value tho and especially if you also want office.

Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash, or that is how Microsoft saw it, but it failed.

It hasn't failed unless you consider win phone 7 as a failure.
Silverlight was never meant to be a replacement for flash just it's competition

Like word competes with wordstar, and excel competes with 1-2-3, and .net competes with java

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

.net competes with java

no!

In reply to a post by commandergc:

Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash, or that is how Microsoft saw it, but it failed.

It hasn't failed unless you consider win phone 7 as a failure.
Silverlight was never meant to be a replacement for flash just it's competition

It have failed, how often do you go to a website that requires silverlight apart from MS own? and even then they don't make it compulsory. ITV got rid of it. The problem with silverlight is that on Windows it is fine, but on the MAc and Linux it is pretty naff unless they have imp[roved it over the last 12 months or so.

Replacement was the wrong word, i should have said " Microsoft version of Flash, which Microsoft would have loved to to replaced flash".

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

windows is still reasonable value for money, as microsoft have yet to copy what others do and charge annual subscriptions for updates so because of that its good value, eg. XP lasted for about 10 years for its price.

i know Windows have problems, but it is getting better, windows 7 is pretty good.
Ok so I been screaming at it for the last couple of days, because I kept getting BSOD, but I found out that was not Windows fault. I moved my computer from one room to another and one of the memory sticks must have slipped out and I did not notice. I went into the machine yesterday to remove my old card reader and decided just to press the memory sticks to make sure and now know more problems

If windows 7 last as long as windows XP then it will be great value for money and as you said it gets updated often.

the problem I have is that SP1 will not install for some reason. I backed up my computer and even installed Windows 7 from Scratch to see if it would work then, but nope, even tried the readyness tool, still no go.

Technet was brilliant value till microsoft nerfed it, even the nerfed version is good value tho and especially if you also want office.

I know what technet is, but never knew it used to belong to another company.

Anyway, Silverlight, may as well install it as you never know,

Thank you guys for all your related response!! I may install Windows 7 SP1 only, but not Silverlight, as I should be reminded to install it if I do visit sites that require it.
Thanks

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Technet was brilliant value till microsoft nerfed it, even the nerfed version is good value tho and especially if you also want office.

I know what technet is, but never knew it used to belong to another company.

Anyway, Silverlight, may as well install it as you never know,

i think he may be referring to the fact that MS changed the product key numbers for the OS'es and office products, went from 10 to 2 about 6 months ago on the technet and technet plus subscriptions

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Silverlight was going to be the replacement for Flash.

Thought you'd like to know.

Shame, the less need I would have for Adobe the better, inefficient and instable rubbish.

html5 will replace most video content.

indeed, thank god for that, let's hope they get it right though.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

how often do you go to a website that requires silverlight apart from MS own?

Quite a lot. It may be failing on other counts but that is not one of them.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

indeed, thank god for that, let's hope they get it right though.

There won't be any h.264 or mp3 support unfortunately.

Edited by deleted (Fri 04-Mar-11 21:47:27)

In reply to a post by OCdragon:

Thank you guys for all your related response!! I may install Windows 7 SP1 only, but not Silverlight, as I should be reminded to install it if I do visit sites that require it.
Thanks

Good luck with SP1, I can't install it for some reason, keep coming up with a error.

I tried using Ms update, tried downloading the file and even downloaded the ISO and still fails. I tried using the readyness tool as well.

I also reinstalled a freash copy of windows and tried to install sp1, still no go. so I went back to the system backup I made.,

so at the moment SP1 will not install.

In reply to a post by The_Jimster:

i think he may be referring to the fact that MS changed the product key numbers for the OS'es and office products, went from 10 to 2 about 6 months ago on the technet and technet plus subscriptions

i see,

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Shame, the less need I would have for Adobe the better, inefficient and instable rubbish.

i got photoshop, after effects and premier installed, I don't use premier much mind you it is a bit bloated and even on this sytstem it is a bit slow.

Photo shop is great and after effects, there is nothing like it, well not for the price anyway and I still got a lot to learn about it.
But I do agree with you that a lot of Adobe stuff is bloated. Premier for instance need s a very powerfull machines to run on, Vegas is better than premier and can run on even a P4 machine, Premier comes to a stop

SP1 installed successfully in my 2 laptops successfully, including even the MS Silverlight. May be I should have read this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/should-you-install-wi...

prior to your SP1 installation though. You could refer to it in case you've similar SP1 installation issues.

In reply to a post by The_Jimster:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

I know what technet is, but never knew it used to belong to another company.

Anyway, Silverlight, may as well install it as you never know,

i think he may be referring to the fact that MS changed the product key numbers for the OS'es and office products, went from 10 to 2 about 6 months ago on the technet and technet plus subscriptions

yep

10 to 2 on the basic and 10 to 5 on the pro. In addition they changed the policy of manual key requests, previously if you used up all 10 you could still manually ask for more keys and they usually would be given, now they refused. If already got more than 2,5 keys when they made the change the keys will still work tho.

Bear in mind tho, these are different to normal retail keys.

A normal retail key is locked to 1 machine, these technet ones will work on 10 unique machines each. So its still 20 installations even on the cheap nerfed one.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sun 06-Mar-11 21:20:34)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by OCdragon:

Thank you guys for all your related response!! I may install Windows 7 SP1 only, but not Silverlight, as I should be reminded to install it if I do visit sites that require it.
Thanks

Good luck with SP1, I can't install it for some reason, keep coming up with a error.

I tried using Ms update, tried downloading the file and even downloaded the ISO and still fails. I tried using the readyness tool as well.

I also reinstalled a freash copy of windows and tried to install sp1, still no go. so I went back to the system backup I made.,

so at the moment SP1 will not install.

you need an install iso with SP1 included then. Shame MS dont supply it on a download link, as its available to technet subscribers.

In reply to a post by OCdragon:

SP1 installed successfully in my 2 laptops successfully, including even the MS Silverlight. May be I should have read this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/should-you-install-wi...

prior to your SP1 installation though. You could refer to it in case you've similar SP1 installation issues.

Tried all ways, installed the readyness tool, given up now.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

you need an install iso with SP1 included then. Shame MS dont supply it on a download link, as its available to technet subscribers.

i have made a windows 7 disk with SP1 in, well I have got the ISO, I will stick it onto disk now, but I will not bother to use it at the moment. I just can't be bothered to reinstall everything again. Do you know how long it takes to reinstall all the plug ins for Vegas?
Not doing it again unless something goes belly up


but thanks anyway.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by OCdragon:

SP1 installed successfully in my 2 laptops successfully, including even the MS Silverlight. May be I should have read this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/should-you-install-wi...

prior to your SP1 installation though. You could refer to it in case you've similar SP1 installation issues.

Tried all ways, installed the readyness tool, given up now.

A friend came up, she downloaded Sp1 and it installed for her, very strange. So computer is running windows 7 pro SP1 64bit.

Amazing, she must have the touch.

computer now seems to be a bit more responsive, which is difficult as it was ok before


Still not found any sites that use Silverlight

It will have no ill effects on your system whatsoever

I thought IPlayer installed Silverlight!

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I thought IPlayer installed Silverlight!

Nope, Iplayer is flash, when it works.
i don't like the new Iplayer anyway, prefer the older version, You can't even do a search on the new one

Im pretty sure Sky player uses sliverlight or at least the live streaming version of sky news does.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Nope, Iplayer is flash, when it works.
i don't like the new Iplayer anyway, prefer the older version, You can't even do a search on the new one

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I prefer get_iplayer to search, download and convert iPlayer programmes for offline viewing.

Always needs updating.

In reply to a post by huwwatkins:

Im pretty sure Sky player uses sliverlight or at least the live streaming version of sky news does.

I have no idea about Skyplayer, never used it and I doubt I ever will. I be surprised if it does, but it may do on the Xbox I suppose

In reply to a post by Spasch:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Nope, Iplayer is flash, when it works.
i don't like the new Iplayer anyway, prefer the older version, You can't even do a search on the new one

Not to hijack the thread or anything, but I prefer get_iplayer to search, download and convert iPlayer programmes for offline viewing.

i had another look at Iplayer and it now does have a search again, very strange.

In reply to a post by krazykizza:

Always needs updating.

and Flash do, almost every month there is a update.