Christie Solaria One Web I/F

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

I have a Christie Solaria One with an IMB S2 that actually works fairly well but I am concerned with the Web interface. I use the web interface for ingestion, playlist creation and scheduling rather than the TPC - it's just a lot easier. Currently I have to use Internet Explorer with Silverlight to access the system. Microsoft has publicly stated that both products will be removed as part of future Windows upgrades and Christie's support staff has told me that the Solaria One is EOL and no new development will be undertaken. I have tried the EDGE IE compatibility mode but it will not support Silverlight. The same is true for Chrome and Firefox.
Short of replacing the whole projector with an NEC 10K or similar, does anyone have any suggestions on future means of managing the system?

[Frank Cox]

Install Linux. Install Wine. Install silverlight under Wine and it (apparently) works.

It looks like you'll have to grab silverlight from Microsoft before the end of October since it'll probably disappear from their website around then.

I think this is the link that you'll need to download it. If it doesn't work then just search for silverlight on Microsoft's website and you'll probably find it.

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=229320

If I were you I would keep the silverlight installer since you never know if Microsoft has installed a timebomb in it like Adobe did with flashplayer. Worst case scenario in that case would be that you'll have to have wine lie about the current date when you run silverlight.

Note that exactly none of this is anything that I've actually tried to do myself.

[Martin McCaffery]

Until we had to replace the IMB with a GDC 1000, we used VNC to control our Solaria one. I never liked the web interface. The TPC interface was easier and the VNC means you didn't have to be sitting with the TPC to do things.

[John Thomas]

To my knowledge, Firefox 52.9 ESR is the last version of any decent browser that supports Silverlight. ESR stands for Extended Support Release, meaning it's a special version of Firefox that maintains support for deprecated things like Silverlight that many enterprises unfortunately still depend on.

You'll need to immediately turn off automatic updates on the browser in order to keep it from updating to the next version that kills Silverlight support. Does that mean that security is compromised? Yes, but at least it's not IE. Don't use it as your everyday web browser and you'll be just fine.

https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/...r/win64/en-US/

That's the link to Mozilla's FTP, with the US-English Windows 64-bit installer. You can browse up a few directories if you need an installer for a different platform or language.

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

Thanks for the tips, I'll track down the ESR of Firefox; I've stashed the installer for Silverlight when I read what MS was doing. As a retired Systems and Network Engineer (since 1978) I am reluctant to keep keep a PC on the network that has updates turned off. Too many bad actors out there trying to exploit open ports. The TPC scares me a bit since it is running XP Embedded. I put the Christie on a private VLAN separate from the rest of the gear at the theater and so far... it hasn't been attacked yet though I see 3-4 intrusion a day from 'friendly' foreign countries going after the Do-Re-Mi/NEC system (VNC's default port). Fortunately, I have a decent firewall and I may do a similar things to minimize its exposure.
Speaking of the PC behind the TPC, the installer never divulged the login info for it, I tried admin, service and marriage with passwords that work with the web I/F and Administrator too, any guesses?
I think I have an old beater laptop that I installed Mint on so I could manipulate the flash drives that the ads come on. I'll have to find it and add some functionality.

Anyway, thanks again!!

[John Thomas]

To be clear, you would be disabling the browser's automatic updates, not Windows'/the PC's. And the link is right there, so no tracking down necessary.

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

Getting Firefox to NOT update (and break Silverlight) is interesting. I'll see if it sticks

[Harold Hallikainen]

The "use old version of Firefox" trick is good. I use that to continue using a 20 year old search engine (Thunderstone Webinator). More recent browsers would not let me log in to configure new searches.

Harold

[Marcel Birgelen]

Thanks for the tips, I'll track down the ESR of Firefox; I've stashed the installer for Silverlight when I read what MS was doing. As a retired Systems and Network Engineer (since 1978) I am reluctant to keep keep a PC on the network that has updates turned off. Too many bad actors out there trying to exploit open ports. The TPC scares me a bit since it is running XP Embedded. I put the Christie on a private VLAN separate from the rest of the gear at the theater and so far... it hasn't been attacked yet though I see 3-4 intrusion a day from 'friendly' foreign countries going after the Do-Re-Mi/NEC system (VNC's default port). Fortunately, I have a decent firewall and I may do a similar things to minimize its exposure.
Speaking of the PC behind the TPC, the installer never divulged the login info for it, I tried admin, service and marriage with passwords that work with the web I/F and Administrator too, any guesses?
I think I have an old beater laptop that I installed Mint on so I could manipulate the flash drives that the ads come on. I'll have to find it and add some functionality.

Anyway, thanks again!!

Use any old computer and use it as a management host, or even better, run it as a VM. Put this host or VM on your private VLAN and enable VNC or Remote Desktop/RDP. If you have a separate firewall, make sure that only authorized hosts can connect to it and that the management host is disconnected from the Internet. If you don't have a separate firewall, try to use the firewall on the host to achieve essentially the same. This solves both the problem of someone actively exploiting it and it won't be able to download any new updates, rendering your configuration unavailable.

We've done the same for some stuff that still requires Flash or Old-School Internet Explorer compatibility...

As for the TPC Local Admin account for XP Embedded: I'm not sure you're supposed to know that, what are you trying to achieve here?

And as for the long-term strategy, I guess it's best to start looking for a replacement for your Solaria One.

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

<Marcel: > I had thought about installing VNC on the TPC so I need login access. Is there a better way? The last time I worked with XP embedded was with a photo kiosk. Well, I'[m not going to be playing with it for awhile; I'm heading up to northern Maine today to work on my retirement house. I may go see a movie at the Temple Theater in Houlton, Maine, suppose to be an interesting place.

[Carsten Kurz]

VNC should be preinstalled on the TPC.

[Elia Orselli]

VNC is preinstalled and password is indicated in user manual

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

You are correct, VNC is installed, however, I can not find the password in the Solaria One user manual or the service manual. Different manual perhaps

[Elia Orselli]

I've sent you a PM

[Thomas G Herendeen, III]

Thanks, it worked, yay!