Now that a Silverlight 4 beta is available, it’s time for me to create a new VM where I can develop Silverlight 4 applications.  This development machine will be based on Windows 7 and include:

• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2
• .NET Framework 4 Beta 2
• Silverlight 4 Beta
• Expression Blend for .NET 4 Preview

As of January, 2010, this represents the most complete development environment possible for Silverlight 4 applications.

Operating System

I’ll be installing into a virtual machine environment, using VMware Workstation 6.5.1, running on top of Windows 7 (the host operating system).  The guest operating system, where I’ll be installing the development tools, will be Windows 7 Ultimate.

Both my host and guest machines are 32-bit (x86).

Here’s our “clean slate”–a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate with nothing else yet installed:

It’s a beautiful sight.

Overview

Here’s a complete list of what I’ll be installing in the Windows 7 virtual machine:

1. Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 (x86)    (19 Oct 2009)
2. Silverlight 4 Beta Tools for Visual Studio 2010    (2 Dec 2009)
3. Microsoft for Expression Blend for .NET 4 Preview    (16 Nov 2009)
4. Silverlight Toolkit    (18 Nov 2009)
5. WCF RIA Services for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2    (3 Dec 2009)

I’ll include a link to the location of each tool in the sections below.

Install Visual Studio 2010

I got my copy of Visual Studio 2010 through my MSDN subscription, but you can get a free copy (“Go Live” license) here:

Download Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

I haven’t tried downloading Visual Studio 2010 from this location, so I’m not sure what edition you get.  But even if it’s one of the Express editions, it ought to be fine for developing Silverlight 4 applications.

We start by launching the VS 2010 installation.

The installation begins.

We agree to the license, after carefully reading it.

Next, we choose either a Full or Custom installation.  I always go with Custom, so that I can turn off stuff that I don’t want.  Notice that the default installation takes up 6.4 GB.

The next screen lets me select individual components to install.  It looks like everything is selected by default.

Here are my preferred choices.  I have no interest in VB, VC++ or F#.  For now, I’ll just stick with C#.  I do include the Office Development tools, but don’t need the Dotfuscator feature or SharePoint development tools.  I also uncheck SQL Server 2008 Express, since I’ll later install a full version of SQL Server 2008 when I need it.  This brings the install footprint down to 3.6 GB.

The installation process now starts.  It will take a while, since we have a lot of different components to install.

A reboot is required after installation of the .NET Framework.

By the way, it’s interesting to note that version 4 of the .NET Framework actually updates the core components of the .NET Framework.  This was not true of version 3.0 or 3.5, which were both just releases that added to existing functionality.  So 4.0 represents the first time that core libraries have been updated since the 2.0 release in Nov, 2005–just over four years ago.

Nearly done now..

And the installation is now complete.

Install Silverlight 4 Beta Tools for Visual Studio 2010

Visual Studio 2010 includes support for Silverlight 3, rather than Silverlight 4.  Because Visual Studio 2010 ships a bit earlier than Silverlight 4 (Visual Studio 2010 shipping in March, 2010 and Silverlight 4 shipping sometime in the first half of 2010), Visual Studio 2010 will support Silverlight 3 rather than Silverlight 4.

You can download the Silverlight 4 Tools for Visual Studio from the link below.  Note that this version of the Silverlight 4 tools works only with Beta 2–not Beta 1.

Download Silverlight 4 Beta Tools for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

The install starts:

There’s another license agreement to read and accept.

The install begins.

And we’re done..

Install Expression Blend Preview for .NET 4

There is a free preview download of Expression Blend that supports targeting both Silverlight 4 Beta and .NET 4 Beta 2.  It is listed as being compatible with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and can be found at:

Download Expression Blend Preview for .NET 4

This is version 3.1.11111.0 of Expression Blend.  It supports creation of both Silverlight 4 Beta and .NET 4 Beta 2 content, but does not support creation of Silverlight 3 or .NET 3.5 content.  It also does not include SketchFlow.

Note: If you are installing the tools to a virtual machine running in VMware Workstation, you may need to make a change in your display settings for the virtual machine before launching the Expression Blend install.  If the 3D graphics setting is enabled for the VM, the Blend install program may not display properly.  Under VMware Workstation 6.5.1, I’ve seen this problem consistently.  The fix is to disabled the 3D graphics setting for the VM.

One you disable 3D graphics, the first dialog in the install program will display properly.

The Blend install dialogs are certainly beautiful.

The installation starts:

And the installation finishes quite politely.

Install Silverlight Toolkit

Next, we install the Silverlight Toolkit, which includes a number of additional Silverlight Controls.  You can find the toolkit on CodePlex.

Download Silverlight Toolkit

The install says that this is the toolkit for Silverlight 3, but the Nov, 2009 release has been updated to include support for Silverlight 4.

Yet another license agreement.

You next get a chance to decide which components of the toolkit to install.

Ready to start the install now.

The Silverlight Toolkit install in action:

And we’re done.

Install WCF RIA Services

Next, we install the WCF RIA services, which is a framework that allows writing n-tier ASP.NET/Silverlight applications.

You can find the WCF RIA Services install at:

Install WCF RIA Services for Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

The link above allows you to download and install the WCF RIA Services.  However, I noticed that when I got to this point, it was already installed.  As it turns out, the install for the Silverlight 4 Beta also installed the WCF RIA Services preview.

Documentation

We’ve now downloaded everything that we need for creating Silverlight 4 applications.  One remaining piece of information that will be helpful is that the Silverlight 4 documentation can be found online at:

Silverlight 4 Documentation

Wrapping Up

There we go.  I now have a clean virtual machine that has everything on it that is needed for creating Silverlight 4 applications.  My one last remaining task is to go and save a snapshot of the VM, so that I preserve the “clean” Silverlight 4 development environment.