Most of the software we develop has to communicate with hardware devices in the local network using TCP/IP, UDP/IP or serial ports. This is probably the only reason we still target WPF instead of Silverlight for our UI.
Socket support in Silverlight 2/3 is poor at best and way to limited.
I’ve read the updated desktop mode in Silverlight 4 allows for more interaction with the
system and less restrictions, but I’m wondering if this also means we’ll be able
to create TCP/IP (or UDP/IP) connections with devices in the local network without
all of the silly restrictions (such as the port range and the policy file).
Does anybody have more details?
In the beta, for trusted out of browser mode, sockets are still port restricted but it looks like they’re planning on lifting this restriction by RTM. The policy file is not required in trusted mode.