Download Silverlight 3 GDR 2 Build 3.0.40818

Microsoft has made available for download a fresh release of its alternative to Adobe Flash. In this regard, the Redmond-based company introduced earlier this week the second update to the RTW (release to web) version of Silverlight 3. Users that want to keep all apps on their machine up to date are now able to download Silverlight 3 GDR 2 straight from the software giant. According to Microsoft, the Silverlight 3 GDR 2 release is essentially designed to update the RTW development milestone of the technology.

In Microsoft talk, GDR stands for General Distribution Release. Silverlight 3 GDR 2 is Build 3.0.40818 and is the second GDR release Microsoft has made available since July 2009. The first GDR took Silverlight all the way to build 3.0.40723, up from the original build string of the technology, namely 3.0.40624, which indicated the gold release.

“Silverlight 3 has been updated with a small set of bug fixes and support for the GB18030 code page for developing Chinese localized applications. A GDR, unlike a hotfix update that you might get from product support, is intended for general use but is much more narrowly scoped and often much smaller in scale than the more widely known service pack releases,” revealed Nicholas Allen, Microsoft Program Manager. “As you might guess from the title, this is actually the second GDR update for Silverlight 3. I didn’t mention the first GDR because it was a runtime only update (it primarily was to fix a problem with media buffering).”

Silverlight 3 RTW (3.0.40624.0) was offered initially on July 10, 2009. The upgrade to Silverlight 2, and the next stage in the evolution of Microsoft’s strategy to increase its piece of the RIA (Rich Internet Applications) market, brought to the table a variety of enhancements, including higher-quality video and audio, boosted data support, enhanced performance, and even out of browser capabilities.

Silverlight 3 GDR 2 Build 3.0.40818 is available for download here.