IE6 + IE7 on a clean XP installation

Question

We need to test the website in both IE6 and IE7. We had errors on real Windows machines that are not visible under vmware (?!), So for this we have a laptop for Windows, but only one. Is it possible to install IE6 and IE7 side by side so that they absolutely, positively behave as if they were only one of them? How?

Answer 1

The officially authorized method is to use the Microsoft installation of Virtual PC and VPC images. You do not need additional licenses for Windows.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D58729D-DFA8-40BF-AFAF-20BCB7F01CD1&displaylang=en

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en

Answer 2

Take a look at http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE . Keep in mind that both sides are not supported by Microsoft side by side ( http://blogs.msdn.com/cwilso/archive/2006/02/01/522281.aspx ), and there is no guarantee that they will work absolutely perfectly on Windows Update can easily break something, and sometimes people find that conditional comments do not work properly among other things. All I can offer is to let you know how you are doing.

Answer 3

The only really reliable way I found is to use Virtual PC and have an image with IE6 on it, Multiple IE or IETester do not always work exactly the same as the original versions

Answer 4

If you can publish your pages on the Internet, you can try http://browsershots.org/ I always use it when I have to test a new layout from almost any browser on the planet.

Answer 5

Virtual PC 2007 is the latest version of VPC. You must use a newer version if you are using Windows Vista. VPC 2004 is not supported for Vista.

Download page for Virtual PC 2007 SP1

Microsoft Virtual VPC homepage where you can find the latest version of VPC