Cross-browser testing: IE6 and IE7 (and maybe more…)
Published December 1st, 2006Further to my last post on this subject, I just got wind of a rather interesting Microsoft blog post offering a solution to the “how do I test my web pages on Internet Explorer 6 after I’ve installed Internet Explorer 7?” quandary. Microsoft is giving away a disk image (that can be run on their free virtualisation software, Virtual PC) containing Windows XP SP2, with IE6.
One downside is that the disk image weighs in at a whopping 435MB or so. And like any other virtualisation software, you’ll need a reasonably quick machine to run Virtual PC at a usable speed. Oh, and the image expires 1st April 2007 — although there might well be more to follow (and possibly, further images with other versions of IE).
No it’s not perfect, but I think MS deserves some credit for recognising what is a genuine problem for web developers, and offering a free solution.
Solid on December 3, 2006
Install multiple versions of IE on one PC: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
Stickman on December 4, 2006
Yeah I posted a link to that (or something very similar) in the earlier article mentioned above. In fact I used that method myself until I had to reinstall Windows recently.
While it’s fine for most purposes, like testing layout, there are limitations (aside from slightly iffy stability): for example, I had problems when it came to testing security settings. I assume it’s because IE is tightly coupled to Windows itself, and so changes made by one version might ’spill over’ into another.
Phantom on December 4, 2006
Rightly or wrongly, I have so far refused to install IE7 on either my home or work machines. I have a tablet PC sitting along side my work machine onto which I have IE7 installed - and I don’t like it. I use it for testing only.
MS’s arrogance in still trying to ride rough shot over every ‘web experience’ with their own half-baked idea of standards implementation, is what really chaps my buttocks.
Look at the up-coming implementation of High Assurance SSL (or ESSL - Extended SSL as it’s now called) to see what I mean. CSS, JS…all of these things are examples of MS trying to force their own view and handling of ‘the web’.
I would say that if you can - install IE7 on another machine. Preferably something you don’t really use for much else.
In reality, if you code correctly and test on Firefox and IE6, 99.9% of the time IE7 will be fine as well. THAT SAID, IE7 has a somewhat unique handling of older Javascript - which has currently rendered one of the menu’s in an application here, completely un-usable.
Stickman on December 6, 2006
I haven’t tested much in IE7 so far. We have it installed on one machine — which, coincidentally or otherwise, has now become almost chronically unstable — but other than quick ‘does it work?’ checks I’ve not spent any time with it.
While I applaud MS’ decision to release these disk images, I’d have preferred it if I could keep IE6 installed and have a disk image with IE7…:) I’ll probably wait for another couple of releases before I install it anywhere important — MS has always needed a couple of tries before getting things right.
Nerd on January 23, 2007
M$ have these problems because they tried to integrate IE so tightly that it HAD do be installed. A disk image just to be able to run IE6 sucks! Bah! M$ is gay!
Solo on February 26, 2007
I use standalone versions of IE6 and IE5.5 along with my installed Firefox and IE7. The standalones aren’t 100% usable, but they work pretty well for checking layouts and look on the older IE browsers:
http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone