IE 7 and page design

[Tannin]

It's a fairly simple matter to have both IE 5 and IE 6 on a system, if you know the trick (which I've probably posted a link to here already somewhere), and that used to be an important thing to have if you write web pages, though I stopped supporting IE 5 in my pages some time ago and don't worry about that any more.

But what about IE 7? Clearly, IE 6 isn't going to go away any time soon - too many Windows 2000 and Windows 98 machines around on the web to even think about dropping IE 6 support for a long while yet. So, is it possible to have both IE 7 and IE 6 on a single machine?

If not, what do you do about testing for compatibility when you write a web page? Which of the two is it better to have on your primary machine?

(All of the above naturally assumes that you wouldn't want to actually use IE, just test web pages with it to sort out the inevitable page-breaking things it does. One also assumes that IE 7 won't be the absolute bitch to program for that 5 and 6 were, though it will still have its quirks. Haven't read up on any of this yet, been away, and will be away again for a long trip shortly.)

 

[Mercutio]

There's a set of instructions for doing several versions of IE on the same Windows install here.

Or you could load load one version or another in a virtual machine.
I do almost all my software testing in VMs these days. Makes life a lot easier.

IE7 CSS support seems to be touchy and/or crappy. I don't know which. A lot of web pages are broken on it, and a staggering number of developers aren't even aware of the problem.

 

[Handruin]

First thing that came to mind was vmware workstation as a desktop application (like Merc suggested). You could also try the free vmware server if you want to do this will a little more complexity on a cheaper budget. Full disclosure would lead me to telling you that I work for the parent company of vmware, but I can attest to the quality of their products because I'm also an end-user.

 

[Sol]

VMWare player and some prefab VMs produced either by formatting a virtual appliance or just using the VMWare workstation trial version would also work fine and be both simple and free...

To be honest knowing that IE6 and IE7 were not entirely compatible I kind of assumed that installing them side by side would be the default behavior since overwriting could break some third party applications (much as setting IE6 security settings to max does). But it seems I have given MS a bit too much credit there. Not that I want to see IE6 infecting everyones computers any longer than absolutely necessary but after MS went to all that work encouraging developers to take the moronic step of integrating IE components into their applications the least they could do is support the poor bastards...

 

[Mercutio]

Microsoft has a downloadable VM for VirtualPC 2004 that includes a full XP Pro install and IE7.

 

[ddrueding]

Microsoft has a downloadable VM for VirtualPC 2004 that includes a full XP Pro install and IE7.

Almost.

Included in the VPC image are:

• Windows XP Professional SP2 + high-priority fixes through November 2006
• Internet Explorer 6.0
• Internet Explorer 7 Readiness Toolkit 2.0

Because:

Now you can install IE7 on your main machine for development, and get all the advantages of IE7, like the RSS platform, native XMLHTTP stack, and improved security, while still running IE6 simultaneously in the VPC on the same computer.

And as a word of warning:

The image is time bombed and will no longer function after April 1, 2007.

 

[Chewy509]

IE7 CSS support seems to be touchy and/or crappy. I don't know which. A lot of web pages are broken on it, and a staggering number of developers aren't even aware of the problem.

Tell me about it... Just finished developing a website for a friend (I'm no pro developer, just know enough PHP and SQL to be dangerous), and found that 20% of the CSS had to be tweaked to make the site work with IE7... works fine in IE5.5, IE6, Firefox 1.5 and 2.0, Opera and Konquerer... but no, IE7 has to be different! :crap: :frusty:

 

[LunarMist]

Apparently IE 7 does not like my computer and will not install. Screw 'em I say.

 

[mubs]

I came across this; didn't read it, though.

How to Install Two Versions of IE (IE6 and IE7) on One Machine