Microsoft Silverlight is going end of life on October 12, 2021. This application framework has been Microsoft’s version of Adobe Flash and has been used for streaming media, multimedia, and animations in web applications.
What is Silverlight?
Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for creating web applications. Microsoft has used Silverlight in their own browsers to provide media streaming, multimedia, and more. Silverlight supports H.264 video, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA), and MPEG Layer III (MP3) media content across all of the supported browsers, it does not require Windows Media Player, Windows Media Player ActiveX control, or Windows Media browser plug-ins.
Silverlight was released on September 5, 2007, and the last browser to support it is Internet Explorer 11. As part of the IE11 end of life, Silverlight will go end of life on October 12, 2021.
Microsoft Silverlight Lifecycle
Microsoft Silverlight will reach the end of support on October 12, 2021. While currently, only Internet Explorer 10 and 11 support Silverlight, IE10 has already gone end of life at the end of 2020, making IE11 the last supported browser to also support Silverlight. Starting back in July of 2015, Microsoft encouraged people to start moving away from Silverlight towards DASH/MSE/CENC/EME based designs.
Silverlight has been released for both Windows and Mac and since it was a core component for media on Microsoft’s default browser for some time, many older devices will still have a Silverlight installation. Additionally, older in-house web applications might also require Silverlight in order to function. Microsoft recommends using the Microsoft Edge Internet Explorer mode in order to continue to use applications that require Active X controls (like Java and Silverlight).
To help you list all of the devices in your IT environment that still have a Silverlight installation, we’ve created a Silverlight end-of-life report. An easy way to list all of the Windows or Mac devices that have a Silverlight installation.
