Comments on: How to test your webpages in different versions of IE?

By: Martin Vereecken

Martin Vereecken — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 07:44:23 +0000

Thanks for the very useful comments on this post, it’s becoming a nice overview of possibilities you have when you want to test on different browsers/platforms. Choose your weapon depending on needs and budget!

By: Tony Palmer

Tony Palmer — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 23:36:19 +0000

MSDN Operating Systems subscription comes in at US$ 699 ($499 for renewals) and includes desktop and server OS’s too - all for development and testing which would cover the licensing.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/aa718657.aspx

of course you could recycle older PC’s licensing for XP/2000 on laptops/pc’s that are not being used.

By: Fabian Robok

Fabian Robok — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 11:04:00 +0000

You’re right about the license requirements for Windows (at least as far as I know), but you can reduce the effort required noticeably using snapshots and/or linked clones.

And if you don’t need all the comfort of VMware Workstation, but are willing to do some more work, even VMware Player or VMware Server might be sufficient (if you install VMware Tools into your images). Still not as simple and easy, but 100% reliable.

It probably depends on the project on hands, if it’s worth the extra effort.

By: Martin Vereecken

Martin Vereecken — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 07:21:25 +0000

This probably is the best solution (I also have VMWare Fusion), but you need different Windows licenses and it’s a lot of work to install all different versions. I’m a bit lazy so unless I really have to I stick to that one license for now.

By: Tony Palmer

Tony Palmer — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 02:43:20 +0000

I use VMWare Workstation. When I was setting up on my own it was the one of the ‘must have’ pieces of software it’s worth every penny. You can run your host with the latest browsers and then other OS’s and browser version as you like (or as your client likes). Heck for intranet’s the client could even build you a SOE VM client.

By: Martin Vereecken

Martin Vereecken — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:13:27 +0000

I can live with that… it’s not a functionality I need when I want to test. But it can be it has some other issues I don’t know of.

By: Ben Poole

Ben Poole — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:53:56 +0000

I find that MutipleIEs is a little hit and miss: for example, favourites seem to stop working in the IE versions lower than 7 (bizarrely, all the favourite links on my machine open… Printers & Fax. Weird).

By: Martin Vereecken

Martin Vereecken — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:58:36 +0000

@Matt: good warning you gave there. Might be a good idea to find somebody in the family still surfing the web with IE6

@Turtle: impressive, some profound testing going on overthere! I presume you have a lot of virtual machines? Or some dust covered 386’s, Mac Classics and Amiga’s?

By: Turtle

Turtle — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:11:56 +0000

For my own site, I do almost no cross-browser testing, though I do de facto cross-platform testing in that I use it from work on MSIE6 and Firefox 2, but at home it’s all Firefox on Mac OSX. For work, my testing is much crazier, in that my organization’s public site has to work with pretty much everything. Yes, I still test with Lynx. Yes, I still have old versions of Netscape and even Mosaic. About the only thing I don’t test on is the old AOL client and the old WebTV. I even test it on Windows Mobile and Blackberry… at home, I only adjust the site for Blackberry if it’s something I happen to need when using my OWN Berry.

By: Matt White

Matt White — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:20:09 +0000

I use this myself, but you do need to be careful because the lower versions of IE are only being emulated, they are about 95% right but I have still found some issues when testing a “real” version of IE6 that this tool doesn’t show up.

Matt

By: Martin Vereecken

Martin Vereecken — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:53:42 +0000

I know. I like it as long as it runs on a Mac. On Windows, I don’t know… it’s like the interface is far from home there. I don’t understand why they didn’t adjust it a little to the Windows look-’n-feel.
I used Opera in the past, but I don’t consider it to be a major player anymore. Just my opinion…

By: Peter von Stöckel

Peter von Stöckel — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:45:58 +0000

You do know that Safari is now available on Windows? Just download from Apple and install. I can’t say I like it, but it works. Opera is also an alternative today.