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Deploy Microsoft Silverlight with Office 2010

 

Applies to: Office 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-07-01

Banner stating end of support date for Office 2010 with link to more info

Microsoft Silverlight technology brings many Microsoft Office experiences to life with improved video, graphics, animations, and interactivity. We recommend that you install Microsoft Silverlight together with Microsoft Office 2010 to improve the user experience with Office 2010.

Silverlight enables a better online experience with Office.com, powers the Office 2010 interactive guides (available with Office 2010), improves the user experience of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, improves the performance of Office Web Companion applications, and helps with the process of uploading Office documents to cloud services. For more information about Silverlight, see the Microsoft Silverlight Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=169258).

To deploy Silverlight together with Office 2010 in an enterprise environment, we recommend that you use a deployment and configuration management tool, such as Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007. This approach enables you to target specific users or systems, elevate user rights for installation, schedule the installation, specify user interaction levels, control restarts, and monitor and troubleshoot the deployment. Or, you can use one of the following methods to deploy Silverlight in an organization:

  • Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 SP1   WSUS enables administrators to deploy Silverlight and manage the updates for Silverlight to computers that are running Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP with Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Vista or later versions of Windows operating systems through the Microsoft Update client.

  • Group Policy computer startup scripts   This method can be used in an Active Directory directory service environment, in organizations that do not have a deployment and management tool such as System Center Configuration Manager 2007.

  • Manual install options   This method can be useful in organizations that do not have an Active Directory environment, or WSUS, SMS, or System Center Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure and use a separate means for software or updates distribution in the company, or want to deploy Silverlight to Apple clients.

For more information about system requirements, deployment methods, and instructions for Silverlight deployment, see Silverlight Deployment Guide v2 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=165403) and Silverlight Administration (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=165405). You can download all versions of Silverlight from the Get Microsoft Silverlight Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=186985).

As with any deployment, we recommend that you fully test your Silverlight deployment and conduct pilot tests with small groups of users before you deploy Silverlight to users in the production environment. For more information about how to test your deployment, see Silverlight Deployment Guide v2 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=165403).