Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Silverlight 5.1 plugin on PPC

Hughmac

Hughmac

macrumors 603
Original poster
Feb 4, 2012
6,040
33,085
Kent, UK
This may help someone, or it may be a complete pile of poo, but here goes ...

You know the Silverlight 2 hack where you fool the installer into letting you use the plugin on PPC machines - see http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/3707/mac-os-x-install-silverlight-2-on-non-intel-systems-ie-powerpc-or-osx86-installs/#sthash.mtKTQzMU.dpuf.
Well, I went to http://mac.filehorse.com/download-silverlight/3749/ and downloaded every version one by one, then hacked them all to remove the InstallationCheck file.
I installed them all to see what did what, and finally found that if you install Silverlight 2.0 first, then Silverlight 5.1.20513.0 it was detected as a plugin by the browser.
The latest version (Silverlight 5.1.20913.0) put the plugin back to version 1.0 for some reason so I'm not using that one.

I don't know what use it is to anyone, but the website at http://www.silverlightversion.com/ detects the plugin and the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 site (which is apparently built with Silverlight) seems to work OK http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/windows-server-2012-r2/default.aspx#fbid=m1W1hcKmga-.

I'll check all these links at home later on an unhacked machine and promptly disprove all my theories :D

Cheers :)

Hugh
 
It sadly won't work. The plugin has been compiled from its closed source to be Intell only starting with 2.0. While it'll install and the browser will show it, it cannot be executed or ran.
 
You are quite correct: This is precisely what I was discussing in another thread, regarding PPC support from third-party businesses.

I really can;t overstate this: The primary reason that new PPC software doesn't exist is that open-source code isn't available. Silverlight is terrible in general, and if it was an open-source project, it would likely be far better, but it's a Microsoft product, so we all know what to expect.

Even if you did have a port of an older SL5 version, the few websites that rely on it would force you to upgrade, by refusing to serve streams on older versions. Businesses such as Netflix want people to use Silverlight, primarily because it is closed source, and thus, harder to hack to remove DRM-encryption from streams.

I don't think that merely hacking the version would help, mainly due to the ever-changing DRM algorithms.

You can hack JAVA RTE to display a false version, and play streams set to require a version of X or higher, as the RTE code hasn't really changed much.
 
I have a website that I go onto that uses Silverlight. I can't view what I need to from my iPhone or iPad. I can view things on my Mac Mini and used to be able to upload images but that stopped working about 2 months ago. Any way to make this work or will I just have to keep using a Windows PC to do what I need to on the site?
 
Intell said:
It sadly won't work. The plugin has been compiled from its closed source to be Intell only starting with 2.0. While it'll install and the browser will show it, it cannot be executed or ran.
Click to expand...

Sorry to reply to a dead thread but I am not entirely sure if this is true because I had just come across a Silverlight 5 disk image that is written in Universal Binary. It seems to work fine after installation and it didn't give me any issues during the install. Netflix even recognizes it as the prompt to download Silverlight 5.1 has changed to "Upgrade your Silverlight"
I'd still like to try and find a way to watch Netflix on a PowerPC machine which seems to come down to getting Silverlight 5.1 installed correctly on a powermac. Maybe there is one out there?
I will leave a link to download the compatible Silverlight 5 disk image here for your own testing: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RoCtZeks__WA-lcEv0g6QMGP-AtUACoi/view?usp=sharing
 
That DMG does not contain Silverlight version 5. It contains version 1, which Netflix will not work with.
 
Someone had suggested a workaround of using an iPhone cable and QuickTime Viewer while the iOS app plays the Netflix movie to view on your Mac screen.
 
  • Like
Reactions: z970
reukiodo said:
Someone had suggested a workaround of using an iPhone cable and QuickTime Viewer while the iOS app plays the Netflix movie to view on your Mac screen.
Click to expand...
Does this work using the QuickTime version we have on PPC? I couldn't get this to work on Mavericks using an iPhone 4s running 6.1.3. And you'd need a 4s or older iPhone anyway since there's no support for Lightning connections on PPC.
 
Last edited:
Amethyst1 said:
Does this work using the QuickTime version we have on ppc? I couldn't get this to work on Mavericks using an iPhone 4s running 6.1.3. And you need a 4s or older iPhone anyway since there's no support for Lightning connections on ppc.
Click to expand...

UPDATE #1: According to http://osxdaily.com/2016/02/15/howto-record-iphone-screen-mac-quicktime/ the Mac needs to be running Yosemite and the iDevice needs to be running iOS 8. So, no dice for us. Reflector which is mentioned as an alternative worked for me using Mavericks and a 4s running iOS 6, but is also Intel-only.

However: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...t-about-imovie06-howto.2042289/#post-24551722 provides a working solution if you can live with standard definition.

UPDATE #2: And there's also the option of running a VNC server on a jailbroken iDevice but I'm inclined to strongly suspect this won't cut it for video.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back