Microsoft Silverlight 5

Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for writing and running rich Internet applications, with features and purposes similar to those of Adobe Flash. The run-time environment for Silverlight is available as a plug-in for web browsers running under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. While early versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, current versions support multimedia, graphics, and animation, and give developers support for CLI languages and development tools. Silverlight is also one of the two application development platforms for Windows Phone, but web pages which use Silverlight cannot run on the Windows Phone or Windows Mobile versions of Internet Explorer, as there is no Silverlight plugin for Internet Explorer on those platforms.

Over the course of about five years Microsoft released five versions: The first version was released in 2007; the fifth on May 8, 2012. It is compatible with later versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome web browsers on Microsoft Windows (except Windows RT) operating systems,[6] with Firefox and Safari under Mac and OS X, and with mobile devices using the Windows Mobile and Symbian (Series 60) platforms.

A free software implementation named Moonlight, developed by Novell in cooperation with Microsoft, was released to bring Silverlight versions 1 and 2 functionality to Linux, FreeBSD and other open source platforms—although some Linux distributions do not include it, citing redistribution and patent concerns.However, in May 2012, Moonlight was abandoned because of its lack of popularity.

Silverlight has been used to provide video streaming for many high profile events, including the NBC coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing,the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver,and the 2008 conventions for both major United States political parties.Silverlight is also used by Netflix for its instant video streaming service.Netflix has stated in their Tech Blog that their goal is to move their video streaming service from Silverlight to HTML5 in the future.

Microsoft Silverlight 5 System Requirements