Silverlight GDR1 shipped just a few months after Silverlight 2 was released to web (RTW), with Microsoft claiming that it was nothing more than just a minor release. According to Tim Sneath, Silverlight 2 GDR1 was designed to bring to the table a few updates set up to resolve a number of issues reported to Microsoft since the availability of version 2 of its Adobe Flash killer. The Silverlight 2 GDR1 end-user runtime went live on February 18, 2009, and was available for download immediately.

“Note that the developer tools page may have an old date/timestamp on it still, but the binary is the new updated version. You have the GDR1 if your Silverlight version is 2.0.40115.0 (the original Silverlight 2 version was 2.0.31005.0),” Sneath said. Initially, the Redmond company was nothing short of hush-hush on what exactly had changed between the Silverlight 2 RTW and Silverlight 2 GDR1 releases. Sneath however managed to shed light on this issue.

“Here is a list of the main changes in the GDR (build 2.0.40115.0): fixes problems that were caused by Silverlight and McAfee scanning tools interactions; UI automation stability fixes, including: graceful failures when attempting to use features that require .Net Framework 3.0 or 3.5 on machines that do not have either framework installed and improved Tablet support; fixes an issue that arises when Mac users customize their environment by removing Arial and Verdana fonts; [and] fixes a known issue with Isolated Storage IncreaseQuotaTo method,” Sneath stated.

At the same time, the Silverlight 2 GDR1 end-user runtime is not the sole post RTW release for Silverlight. Microsoft also made available the Silverlight 2 GDR1 updated developer tools, which are also up for grabs. Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 are offered as an add-on for VS 2008 SP1, permitting developers to build Silverlight applications.


The Silverlight 2 GDR1 end-user runtime is available for download here.

The Silverlight 2 GDR1 updated developer tools are available for download here.