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what's the best way to have multiple version of internet explorer on my computer for web development testing?

I see IE Collection and TredoSoft. Are there other good ones?

NaV
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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) – i_am_jorf Dec 29 '10 at 19:38

3 Answers3

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IE Collection has issues IIRC when you have IE8 installed it kills editable textboxes in the IE6 image...

IETester is pretty good, but doesn't handle popup window interaction very well at all.

Spoon.net used to have awesome standalone IE versions but Microsoft shut them down

Unfortunately the best bet at the moment is to use the free Microsoft Virtual PC application and images of the Windows/IE environments you want. (they are time bombed though, so you'll need to re-download/re-configure them about every 3months or so.

There is also Microsoft Super Preview... but this (AFAIK) only lets you see basic visual differences and doesn't allow you to test interaction/JavaScript behavior.

scunliffe
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  • -1 For hacky SxS products. VPC and Super Preview are the only correct solutions. See dupe link for discussions. – i_am_jorf Dec 29 '10 at 19:39
  • @jeffamaphone - I'm not sure why the -1? The SxS (Side by Side?) options may not be to everyone's taste, but for quick testing they can often be very helpful - unfortunately they have significant issues if you are doing extensive testing. Spoon was very handy until MSFT shut them down. VPC is good, but what if you are on Linux or Mac? What annoys most developers is that if they are already on Windows, testing other "Windows" based browsers shouldn't have to require fullblown VM's just to test a web page. :-( – scunliffe Dec 30 '10 at 19:42
  • re "VPC is good, but what if you are on Linux or Mac?" I use Virtualbox with a full-blown Windows install. It's one more XP license, but alas, those specific pre-built VPC images from MSFT (which do not require an additional license, as per their EULA) are trapped not to work in VirtualBox (and thus on a Linux guest - VPC is Windows-only). It sucks that this is the case, but I worry more about things I can change - virtualization has gone a long way in the past few years, and the speed difference is negligible. – Piskvor left the building Dec 31 '10 at 08:36
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In my experience, the only way to ensure the different versions don't mess up each other, is to keep them completely separated.

In other words, set up virtual machines with different versions of IE in each - it's time-consuming to set up, but then each can be used separately.

Piskvor left the building
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Just stumbled over this by googling for IE11. The best way is really to keep them seperate in VM's

Anyone should have a look at https://github.com/xdissent/ievms which is a great automatic setup for IE6 up to IE10.

It also refers to http://www.modern.ie/ where you can let others test, use a browser plugin or also get the VM's

spankmaster79
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