.NET Answers

If you followed along with the install instructions last week and then went to do some development, you probably noticed that the Visual Studio environment does not allow for WYSIWYG/Drag and Drop GUI development like we can do with Windows Forms or ASP.NET development.

Insert rant for how lame this is here…

But all is not lost.  While the tools are not available in Visual Studio, they ARE available in Expression Blend 2.  So, our next step in the installation process is to install Expression Blend 2.

The install for Expression Blend 2 is a two-step process.  The initial install, and then the service pack install.

Download the initial install from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5FF08106-B9F4-43CD-ABAD-4CC9D9C208D7&displaylang=en

or, if you have an MSDN subscription, install it from there.  My install from the MSDN disk did not take that long at all.

Next, install the service pack from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=EB9B5C48-BA2B-4C39-A1C3-135C60BBBE66&displaylang=en

This also does not take that long.

Once you have installed Expression Blend 2, you will be able to open your XAML files with Expression Blend 2 from within Visual Studio.

Related Post

• Installing Silverlight2 Tools for Visual Studio
• Do you Need My Help?
• Essential Silverlight 3
• Silverlight – Navigating Data
• Silverlight – Databinding to a Web Service

One Response to “More on SilverLight Developer Installation”