ARTICLE NO. 92    December 05, 2006

IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine

by Alex Schleifer
While there are other solutions about, here’s Microsoft’s hack for running IE6 & 7 on the same machine. Clocking in at over half a gigabyte, it’s a bit too much trouble to simply run a browser. Granted, it’s a virtual machine but why can’t the worlds most powerful software company release a simple install? To make matters worse it will stop working on April 1st. Hilarious.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Alex is CEO of Sideshow , an award winning creative agency. You can read his blog here.
View Profile

Comments

Add a new comment

Because of problems with spam comments, HTML in comments is not permitted. URLs are allowed, but they will not be rendered as clickable links.
December 05, 2006
couldn’t more agree. I’ve downloaded the whole stuff and installed, but could not configure the virtual network so that it manages to connect to the LAN here. Sooooo much trouble again. and for what?
December 05, 2006
I’ve been using this for a while now and it works great! It has IE 3 (!) onwards and appart from the minor issues for some versions of the browser it is a charm. A must for those testing websites with several browsers. Plus it only takes a few seconds to install.
December 05, 2006
Ridiculous solution. As much as I love VM technology, this is clearly a case when something much simpler should be in place.
December 05, 2006
Let me preface this by saying that I’m a Mac user. Now that we have that out of the way (and correct me if I’m wrong), isn’t Apple essentially in the same boat with regards to Safari? I mean, they don’t provide a way to run Safari 1.0, 1.1, etc., together under, say, 10.4, do they? As much as I hate to say it, at least Microsoft is trying here (so too is Apple, with their nightly builds of Webkit, even though that is looking forward, rather than backward). This is what happens — regardless if you’re Microsoft or Apple — when you tie your web framework so closely into the operating system. All that being said, I can’t help but wonder why Microsoft (and Apple) can’t create an ultra-cheap (or free) developer toolkit that includes a DVD of, say, VirtualPC, and disk images of Windows XP with IE6, WIndows 2000 with IE5.5, and Windows 2000 with IE 5.0. Tie them together so they require a valid Windows XP license key to work (make sure they don’t expire), and off you go… Either that, or simply release the licensing for EOL’ed versions of their operating systems (e.g., Windows 98 and 95) so that anyone who wants to can download and run them (they’re basically worthless for anything more than developer testing) can go ahead and do so, free of charge.
December 06, 2006
A less demanding alternative is using Tredosoft’s installer with all IE browsers running on the same machine. I wrote how to use it (very easy) on justaddwater.dk: All IE Browsers Standalone On Same PC
December 08, 2006
Agreed, it’s laughable. I’m currently running IE6 and IE7 on two different machines. To my horror my IE6 install was nearly updated to IE7 this morning by Windows Update. Luckily I noticed the little pop-up notification from my system tray and stopped the process. Personally I’m not liking the aggressive approach to upgrading that MS is using but at the same time I can see why they are doing it. Already I can’t wait for the day when the stats tell me that I can ditch IE6 altogether.
December 08, 2006
Philip, You do realise, I hope, that IE7 will NOT install automatically, even if your system is set to download and install updates automatically: http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/07/26/105845.aspx
December 05, 2006
Philip, You do realise, I hope, that IE7 will NOT install automatically, even if your system is set to download and install updates automatically: http://msmvps.com/blogs/spywaresucks/archive/2006/07/26/105845.aspx
December 05, 2006
Agreed, it’s laughable. I’m currently running IE6 and IE7 on two different machines. To my horror my IE6 install was nearly updated to IE7 this morning by Windows Update. Luckily I noticed the little pop-up notification from my system tray and stopped the process. Personally I’m not liking the aggressive approach to upgrading that MS is using but at the same time I can see why they are doing it. Already I can’t wait for the day when the stats tell me that I can ditch IE6 altogether.
December 05, 2006
A less demanding alternative is using Tredosoft’s installer with all IE browsers running on the same machine. I wrote how to use it (very easy) on justaddwater.dk: All IE Browsers Standalone On Same PC
December 05, 2006
Let me preface this by saying that I’m a Mac user. Now that we have that out of the way (and correct me if I’m wrong), isn’t Apple essentially in the same boat with regards to Safari? I mean, they don’t provide a way to run Safari 1.0, 1.1, etc., together under, say, 10.4, do they? As much as I hate to say it, at least Microsoft is trying here (so too is Apple, with their nightly builds of Webkit, even though that is looking forward, rather than backward). This is what happens — regardless if you’re Microsoft or Apple — when you tie your web framework so closely into the operating system. All that being said, I can’t help but wonder why Microsoft (and Apple) can’t create an ultra-cheap (or free) developer toolkit that includes a DVD of, say, VirtualPC, and disk images of Windows XP with IE6, WIndows 2000 with IE5.5, and Windows 2000 with IE 5.0. Tie them together so they require a valid Windows XP license key to work (make sure they don’t expire), and off you go… Either that, or simply release the licensing for EOL’ed versions of their operating systems (e.g., Windows 98 and 95) so that anyone who wants to can download and run them (they’re basically worthless for anything more than developer testing) can go ahead and do so, free of charge.
December 05, 2006
Ridiculous solution. As much as I love VM technology, this is clearly a case when something much simpler should be in place.
December 05, 2006
I’ve been using this for a while now and it works great! It has IE 3 (!) onwards and appart from the minor issues for some versions of the browser it is a charm. A must for those testing websites with several browsers. Plus it only takes a few seconds to install.
December 05, 2006
couldn’t more agree. I’ve downloaded the whole stuff and installed, but could not configure the virtual network so that it manages to connect to the LAN here. Sooooo much trouble again. and for what?
  • Showing 1-14 of 14