WezM.netThe weblog of Wesley Moore

I encountered a (Microsoft) site the other day that required Silverlight to be installed. Given I was using my work laptop (running Windows XP) I thought I’d give it a try. The first attempt at running the setup file I downloaded resulted in the following error message (which was opened in a browser window, not displayed by the installer):

The Microsoft Silverlight download was automatically extracted to a virtual drive. You should manually extract the download to a physical drive, and then run it from there. Please follow these steps to complete your installation:

1. Create a new folder on drive C called SilverlightTemp.
2. Save the Silverlight download to this folder.
3. Click Start, click Run, type cmd.exe, and then click OK.
4. In the cmd.exe window, type cd C:\SilverlightTemp\, and then press Enter.
5. This step depends on which version of Silverlight you are installing.
* For Silverlight 1.0 Beta:
In the cmd.exe window, type Silverlight.1.0beta.exe /X, and then press Enter.
* For Silverlight 1.1 Alpha:
6. In the cmd.exe window, type Silverlight.1.1alpha.exe /X, and then press Enter.
7. If you receive a User Account Control (UAC) prompt, click Continue.
8. In the Choose Directory For Extracted Files box, type C:\SilverlightTemp, and then click OK.
9. In the Extraction Complete box, click OK.
10. In the cmd.exe window, type install.exe, and then press Enter.
11. If you receive a UAC prompt, click Continue.
12. In the cmd.exe window, type cd.. and then press Enter.
13. In the cmd.exe window, type rmdir SilverlightTemp /S /Q, and then press Enter.
14. In the cmd.exe window, type exit, and then press Enter.

After recovering from the initial shock of the installation instructions for a very consumer oriented technology requiring use of the command line, I followed the instructions only to be shown another web based error message:

This installation is forbidden by system policy. Contact your system administrator for assistance.

Yes, that’s right I don’t have administrator privileges on my work laptop. Surely the installer could have worked this out at the start of the process.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.