Silverlight 5 Beta version is finally released and the same is now available for download with all its tools, documentations, SDKs, Developer Runtime and many other support components. Earlier we have reported that the Beta version of Silverlight would be released towards the Q1 2011 and the day has finally arrived as it is now made available for public use. The said beta version was first announced in the MIX 11 and has been then listed in the Microsoft Download Center few days back which comes along with many new features and API that makes developing Premium Media Applications and Business Applications easy and quite productive.

As already mentioned above, Silverlight 5 features new support and extended capabilities so as to enhance the productivity standards of the developer and help them create rich business apps effectively. It now makes it possible to make use of the GPU acceleration which is at the same time XNA compatible and also utilize the intermediate mode 2D API which is supported. It provides support for WAV audio formats and facilitates sound effects having low latency. There are also many features which provides a lot of conveniences such as data templates which can be reused on the UI and also multi-click support that was earlier missing. There is also a multi-display support included together with the Real operating system windows which are some of the few key features of this beta edition that is currently available to download and make use of, and not to mention other productive and technical enhancement along with the improvement in the overall performance.

You can download the Silverlight 5 Beta from its official site or directly from the Microsoft Download Center which is of 27.1MB in size. The download file consists of the Silverlight 5 Beta (Developer Runtime, Software Development Kit), WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP2 Preview and the latest updates for VS2010 SP1 and VWD Express 2010 SP1. The general system requirements to use it on your computer is Windows 7 or Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 or else Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. You can also download the offline MSDN Developer Documentation of Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta from the download center and the same would be around 75MB in size.

This latest beta edition contains lots of updates and added functionalities which are also improved in quality and standards. There are many such changes being registered in Controls, User Interface, Out-of-Browser, Data, XAML, 3D Graphics, Media, Application Model, Text and so on. You can therefore follow the links as mentioned above and get it installed in to your computer to try out the latest features and also to be able to build some advanced and meaningful apps using it. You may also make use of many video tutorials available on the web which will let you understand properly the new methods and accordingly help you get started with Microsoft Silverlight 5 Beta.