How to Uninstall Silverlight

Silverlight is an application framework released by Microsoft that can be used for writing and running rich Internet apps. However, Silverlight is now being regarded as deprecated with Microsoft announcing that support for it on Internet Explorer 11 will be terminated on October 12, 2021. This was the last browser that still offered support for Silverlight. Users who have Silverlight installed on their systems and now wish to uninstall it can follow the steps below to achieve this goal in an easy and effective manner.

On Mac, the removal process for Silverlight begins by first opening Finder from the Dock. Go to your hard drive folder (default is Macintosh HD), then open the 'Library' folder. Locate 'Application Support' and open it. Open the 'Microsoft' folder. Now, select and move to the Trash the folders named 'PlayReady' and 'Silverlight.' Return to the 'Libary' folder but this time open 'Internet Plug-ins.' Inside, locate the 'Silverlight.plugin' file and delete it. The last step is to remove the Silverlight alias file from the Applications folder. Go back to Finder, open 'Applications,' select the Silverlight alias file, and move it to the Trash.

Some residual files might still be left on the system. In this users can open Terminal and execute the following commands to completely remove Silverlight:

rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin
rm -rf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/WPFe.plugin
rm -rf /Library/Receipts/Silverlight*.pkg
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft/Silverlight
rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.microsoft.installSilverlightPlugin.bom
rm -rf /var/db/receipts/com.microsoft.installSilverlightPlugin.plist

To start the uninstall process on a Windows system, users first need to close all active browsers. Then type control panel in the search box on the Taskbar and open the top result. Either click on 'Uninstall a program' or go through 'Programs' and then 'Programs and Features.' In the list of installed programs, find 'Microsoft Silverlight,' right-click it, and choose 'Uninstall.' It is recommended to also search through the list of installed programs for 'WPF/E (codename) Community Technology Preview (Dec 2006)' or 'WPF/E (codename) Community Technology Preview (Feb 2007)' and if present, remove them as well.