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Is there a way to run Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 at same time or one after the other, to test UI of a web application? Or is there any other solution for this?

Peter Mortensen
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Yajuvendra Vant
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  • Why people still want to run IE6? It's not supported by anyone anymore and most likely exists in some mundane compatibility specifications only because someone forgot to remove it from those. – Esko Jul 27 '10 at 11:17
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    possible duplicate of [Running IE6, IE7, and IE8 on the same machine](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/574463/running-ie6-ie7-and-ie8-on-the-same-machine) – Mark Jul 27 '10 at 11:17
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    Esko this is for the peoples and places where they are still on ie6, like some traditional schools and other institutes where they dont wanna take risk by upgrading. – Yajuvendra Vant Jul 27 '10 at 13:21
  • They're taking a huge risk on *not* upgrading - and upgrading is free, I might add. Bfhh. – Esko Jul 28 '10 at 08:04

10 Answers10

9

Virtual PC with multiple virtual machines, each with a different version of IE.

Microsoft even makes Windows XP/Vista + IE6/7/8 VM's available to download here.

Bernardo Botelho
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  • Visit http://modern.ie to download versions of Windows with different IE versions that run on any platform. Over 90 VMs to choose from. – Chris Love Jan 22 '14 at 16:32
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Use IETester - it allows you to test your site on all versions of IE.

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

Nate Dudek
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  • Good one Thanks. but eating the memory like anything. very slow and hanging.(i am using Core2Duo with 2Gbram) – Yajuvendra Vant Jul 27 '10 at 11:36
  • I also use IETester never had any problems with it other then the child processes crashing because they couldn't handle certain code. Great app. – Not Available Jul 27 '10 at 11:38
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    No, don't do this. IETester mixes and matches random Windows OS dlls. They don't all play nice together, so you can't trust the results and you still have to go use the Virtual machines to really test. Also, these dlls don't get patched by Windows Update, so they are a security risk as well. – i_am_jorf Jul 27 '10 at 15:54
  • Yes, You can use IETester. I'm using IETester 0.4.12 which supports IE5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 – Ripon Al Wasim Jan 14 '13 at 09:46
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In addition to the already posted IE Tester, there are tools like browsershots.org out there to test the look and such and Microsoft's Super Preview (part of Expression), but no way to have them completely installed side-by-side (like a normal client would) that's not complete hackery, at least that I'm aware of.

Nick Craver
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I have used IEtester etc in the past. but for me there is no better alternative than viewing the applicationd in VM's set up as possible client setups. IETester is good, but I found that not all script issues were necessarily raised or reported. So in the interest in being thorough the VM solution is the best.

@Esko - surprisingly there are still a number of organisations who have standardised on IE6 and won't allow upgrades, as they still have legacy applications running that still require IE6. strange but very true :-)

Gary Woodfine
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You can also try Adobe® BrowserLab, I have used it to test with many browsers instead of installing them. Not the best but since all the others that I know of have already been mentioned, just another alternative.

0

VmwareWorkstation is very useful ,especially its snapshot feature.

for example,you can install a virtual machine based on Win XP, save a snapshot to keep IE6 available. then you can update to IE7 ,save another snapshot. so you can switch these two snapshot freely to use ie6 or ie7.

and DON NOT use IETester things. i ever tried this tool to find out that it doesn't perform like real browsers.

CobraBJ
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Although IETester can be useful at times, it does sometime render content slightly different and some JS scripts might not work as they would on the real thing.

So in my experience it's best to setup some virtual machines which has a different IE version on each instance.

I know this might sound tedious, but in the long run it's better to test and verify your websites that way.

Tom van Enckevort
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0

I've used MultipleIEs, but I don't think it works on Windows 7.

user254875486
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You can do this using 'XP mode' in windows 7 - you need two virtual hard drives set up, but you can then create shortcuts on your win 7 desktop to 'open' IE6. There's a good walkthrough of how to do this here:

http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/ie6-ie7-ie8-win7-xp-mode/1

Paddy
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I like Browser Sandbox, it's really easy to use.

PlageMan
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