Up until recently, the information below would have caused me little to no concern.

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However, as I have been digging deeper into System Center 2012 Silverlight is becoming more of a core piece of functionality. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that the new System Center products should not use Silverlight – quite the opposite. The new Silverlight consoles are beautiful and far more useable. However, I do believe that Microsoft needs to provide Silverlight functionality in Internet Explorer x64.  The 64 bit platforms are now the platform of choice and eventually Internet Explorer x64 should become the browser of choice (at least versus the x86 equivalent). Here’s the scorecard I see this so far from a System Center 2012 perspective and an Internet Explorer x64 perspective:

Advisor:

  • Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Configuration Manager 2012:

  • Software Center: Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64
  • Software Catalog: Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Data Protection Manager 2012: 

  • No web console

InTune:

  • Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Operations Manager 2012:

  • Application Advisor –Works on both Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer X64
  • Application Diagnostics –Works on both Internet Explorer and Internet Explorer X64
  • Web Console – Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Orchestrator 2012:

  • Orchestration Console – Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Service Manager 2012:

  • Self Service Portal: Requires Silverlight so it will not run on Internet Explorer X64

Virtual Machine Manager 2012:

 

 

The following link is to the Microsoft Connect site discussion on “Provide Silverlight version for x64” which was closed a “Won’t Fix”: http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/356125/provide-silverlight-version-for-x64. Potentially “Won’t Fix” means just in the current version – this could be fixed in a future version of Silverlight. Additional discussion on this topic: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/01/why-microsoft-isnt-working-on-silverlight-64-bit.ars 

 

Kudos: Thanks to Paul Johnson for pointing this out to me on OpsMgr 2012 and Chris for clarification on the Configuration Manager portals!

Summary: As of today there appear to be 8 consoles in System Center currently that will not run on Internet Explorer X64 due to Silverlight not being available on for Internet Explorer X64.

Category: infrastructure