New functionality has been added to the Silverlight Streaming service.

You can specify a background image in the iframe.

This feature enables you to specify a background image for an application. The image will be set as the page background for the page that makes up the iframe contents, i.e. the one that holds the Silverlight application on your web site. This helps with the first run experience and the Silverlight installation experience, as the application can show an image of what the application will look like after Silverlight gets installed.

The element is <backgroundImage> in manifest.xml and should point to a valid image file within the application package.

Example of manifest using the background image tag:

<SilverlightApp>
  <source>contentHolder.xaml</source>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <jsOrder>
    <js>contentHolder_xaml.js</js>
    <js>Page.xaml.js</js>
  </jsOrder>
  <onLoad>HandleSLSLoad</onLoad>
  <backgroundImage>install.jpg</backgroundImage>
</SilverlightApp>

.Zip has been added to the upload "allow list".

The zip file extension has been added as a supported file type within the uploaded zip archive. You can now include zip archives to the Silverlight Streaming application package. This allows applications to use the downloader object in Silverlight.