Techie Musings

Silverlight vs. Flash Installation in Firefox

I recently went through the exercise of installing both Flash and Silverlight in Firefox on Windows on my new netbook. I’m using a beta build of Windows 7 and IE still comes with an old version of Flash which usually gets updated by Adobe fairly painlessly when you hit a Flash site. However, Firefox doesn’t come with Flash and if you hit a Flash-enabled site, you get prompted to install the plug-in by Firefox. What amazed me is the number of steps required to install Flash in Firefox compared to Microsoft’s competing technology called Silverlight. Let’s take a look:

Visit a Flash-enabled site like Hulu

 

Step 1: Click on Install Missing Plug-in button in Firefox.

Step 2: Can’t install it automatically, so need to do a Manual Install…

Step 3: Manual Install means being sent to Adobe Flash download page.

Step 4: Download the Flash player installation file in Firefox.

Step 5: Firefox asks me if I *really* want to install this binary (yes, I know I can turn this nag off).

Step 6: Doh! Firefox is running and needs to be closed down.

Step 7: All Firefox instances need to be close – I had 4 open including the download box.

Step 8: Flash is installed.

 

Step 9: I finally get to the content.

 

So after 9 steps, I get to the content. Now let’s take a look at the Silverlight installation experience.

Visit a Silverlight-enabled site like Netflix Watch Instantly.

Step 1: Click on Install Now to get the Silverlight plug-in

Step 2: Run the Silverlight installer.

Step 3: Install the Silverlight plug-in.

Step 4: Silverlight is now installed. While you’re told to restart browsers, the Silverlight Netflix player had already started in the currently open Firefox session.

So what’s the takeaway? It is an easier and quicker experience for the end-user to install Silverlight in Firefox than it is to install Flash due to a more streamlined installation experience, lower user interaction and reduced cognitive load.

I don’t care about download size, installation time, or the fact that once one of these plug-ins is installed you don’t need to reinstall them. I’m just looking at this from an initial installation experience standpoint.

(Disclosure: I work for Microsoft, though these are my personal views and findings.)

Make a Bootable USB Flash Drive

UNetbootin is a great utility that creates a bootable USB flash drive and installs an operating system like FreeDOS or Linux to that drive. Even better, it enables you to put an ISO image on the USB drive, so you could download a Ubuntu ISO and put it on a USB flash drive, then boot from it.

MSI Wind and Windows 7 – One Click Install

Today, I installed the Windows 7 beta on a new MSI Wind netbook (I’ve decided to return the Acer Aspire One due to its limited battery life, lack of Bluetooth and poorly designed trackpad buttons).

There’s not much to say really. While I did our network-based installation at work, I anticipate that installing from a DVD and having an Internet connection would go the same. End result: a fully working and configured machine including all the devices with no hitting up the web for drivers! Astonishing. This is the best Windows installation experience I’ve ever had and this is with a beta OS!

A Package from the Future

I bought something from Costco.com and it is supposed to turn up on Tuesday next week despite the fact that it won’t be shipped for another 11 years! :)

Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One Netbook

I am trying out an Acer Aspire One netbook. It is one of the cheaper ones, but its performance is similar to all the other ones out there. It is available either with Linux or Windows XP but I wanted to see how Windows 7 would run on it.

I installed Windows 7 Build 7000 from a DVD (connected via USB) and was pleasantly surprised to find everything apparently working when it had finished. The wireless network adaptor did not work but rebooting fixed it and brought to light a problem, which I have not yet solved: the WLAN works half the time. If it is working, reboot and the WLAN hardware will not be configured and will show up as Ethernet adaptor. Reboot again and it be configured as an Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adaptor.

You can install a Synaptics trackpad Vista driver in order to get some additional functionality, but it works fine without it. The Aspire One has two memory card slots, which do require a driver to work. The memory card reader controller is a JMicron JMB38X and you can find a Vista driver here.

Note that the latest BIOS is version 3309 and can be downloaded here. However, for some ridiculous reason, the only way to update it is by booting the machine into DOS from a bootable floppy. Fortunately, there are instructions on this site on how to create a bootable USB flash drive for this purpose.

Overall, Windows 7 (and Office 2007) work well on this little machine.

Griffin Technology Navigate

This looks nifty: remote, display and FM radio for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Griffin Technology: Navigate

How to defeat version checking in BootCamp.msi

Here’s a quick set of instructions for disabling the version checking in BootCamp.msi. This is what I did in order to make the patched BootCamp.msi referenced in this post.

The reason you may need to make these changes yourself is that chances are that the BootCamp.msi supplied with newer Macs is different to the one that I have available and previously patched.

Windows 7 on a Mac (again)

At the end of October, I posted about running Windows 7 natively on an Intel-based Mac and installing the Boot Camp drivers. Numerous commenters found that what I described did not work for them. Since my system was working, I haven’t had to reinstall the Boot Camp drivers, but with the availability of a new build of Windows 7 and the reinstallation that it requires, I’ve had to repeat the Boot Camp installation.

First of all, the method described in my October post continues to work for me. Perhaps I didn’t describe it in enough detail, so I’ll try again. Before I get started, don’t expect support or responses from me about this. It works on my MacBook Pro (version 3,1) with Windows 7 Build 7000 and Boot Camp drivers from the Leopard installation disk. If it doesn’t work for you, I can’t help. I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have time. Sorry.