IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine

Many of you have asked how to run IE6 and IE7 in a side by side environment. As Chris Wilson blogged about early this year, it’s unfortunately not so easy to do. There are workarounds, but they are unsupported and don’t necessarily work the same way as IE6 or IE7 would work when installed properly. As Chris said, the best way to use multiple versions of IE on one machine is via virtualization. Microsoft has recently made Virtual PC 2004 a free download; we’ve taken advantage of that by releasing a VPC virtual machine image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, IE6 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit to help facilitate your testing and development. The image is time bombed and will no longer function after April 1, 2007. We hope to continue to provide these images in the future as a service to web developers.

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. Most importantly, you don’t even have to buy an additional Windows license. The VPC image runs in a virtual machine that offers all of the functionality of a full IE6 installation without giving it any access to its host machine’s hard drive, registry, etc. You can make as many modifications as you want to the virtual machine without affecting your host installation at all. 

Included in the VPC image are:

While we’ve released a VPC image today with Windows XP SP2, we’re also investigating creating other VPC images, for example IE5, IE5.5, IE6 and IE6 SP1, as well as versions of IE on different language operating systems.

Get more information on Virtual PC 2004
Download Virtual PC 2004
Download the Internet Explorer 6 Testing VPC Image

One more note - VPC 2004 doesn’t run on Windows Vista, but this image will work fine with VPC 2007, which is in beta now. You can get this free beta via Connect.

Happy testing!

PEte LePage
Product Manager

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Great news at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Awesome! Glad to hear that you have released an image we can work with!  I would say "Finally", but I don't want to push my luck. When IE8 rolls around, please release the image MONTHS in advance, so we can do proper parallel testing.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Another way to accomplish this, without the virtualization of the operating system is to use Microsoft's SoftGrid product.  This virtualizes just the application - either IE 6 or IE 7 or both - on Windows XP.  You can even run them side by side because all registry entries and files that might be shared are placed in their own 'workspace'. Information about this product is still at http://www.softricity.com/, even though Microsoft has purchased the company. Yes, it does require purchasing a product from Microsoft, but it offers a lot of flexibility for future testing. tim cerling  (yes, I am also from Microsoft, so this is a bit of a plug.  But this is some really interesting and useful technology.)

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    We have heard tons of feedback about the need for developers to run both IE6 and IE7 on their machine

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    "The image is time bombed and will no longer function after April 1, 2007. We hope to continue to provide these images in the future as a service to web developers." So what launches on April 1st 2007 that developers will no longer require testing in both IE6 and IE7? I can understand the usefulness for correcting existing projects, but what about new projects created after April 1st? I'm sure most of us will have adopted a "best practice" for creating new content, but just because we build a site using code that is tested in both IE6 and IE7 prior to April 1st doesn't necessarily mean new projects don't require testing. I'm happy that you have provided a solution that happens to match one of my earlier suggestions and I look forward to being able to return to development once again after such a hiatus.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Doh! I just went and bought another licensed copy of Windows XP for this very purpose last week. This was certainly an issue for developers that needed to be addressed, so thanks anyway.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    This is fantastic news!

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Tony -- My guess is that shortly before April 1, 2007, they will release another image that is timebombed for ~6 months after that. I guess you could call this inconvenient, but since the image is solely meant for using IE6, it's not like you should have much of anything on the VPC that you'd have to replace...

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    IEの公式ブログ IEBlog で IE6 と IE7 を一つのパソコンで同時に動かす方法が紹介されています。 IE7 RC1をスタンドアローンで動作させる方法 などレジストリを使う方法はいくつかあるようなのですが、IEBlog で公式にオススメしているのは VirtualPC を使う方法。 VirtualPC は仮想PC を別途インストールするわけで「それなら Windows のライセンスがもう...

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Good news.  This should have been done a lot earlier.  Now how about images for testing IE5.01 and IE5.5 with Windows 2000?  IE 6 is not the only legacy IE browser in use today with which web designers need to test.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Multiple IEs seems like the best solution to this problem: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    I installed the RTM ver of IE7 and it continues to crash 8/10 times I launch it. I applied the RunOnceComplete and ShowRunOnce registry fixes but it still crashes. It crashes with error in ghmpdic.dll and causes IE to shut down. Anyone know what this error is and how to fix it? I even run the IE with no add-ons and it still crashes just as often. Thanks

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Matt Raible - Using Multiple_IE is one way of testing, but doesn't always give completely accurate results.  I've blogged about this at <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2006/11/20/ie6-and-ie7-side-by-side.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2006/11/20/ie6-and-ie7-side-by-side.aspx</a> nmarmolejo - We don't have the resources to offer support via blog comments, the best way to get help is to check out the support page at <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/support/default.mspx">http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/support/default.mspx</a>

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    This is awesome. However would you consider releasing another image with IE7 installed, so people with Win2k can test IE7?

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The post just went live! http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Minus the issues of this being time-bombed (shame on your Microsoft for making this harder) this is just about the greatest thing you've done for developers in a long time. I have a totally unnatural love you now. You've made my day. Thank you very much.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx From one...

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    @ Ben Buchanan People with Windows 2000 don't need to test IE7. Those who in the end of 2006 still use Windows 2000 (!!!), should continue working with Office 97, programming in Ada and gaming King's Bounty. Indeed, if you use an old gramophone, you should'n complain that it doesn't play DVD.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    What are the chances of this working with VPC 7.0.1 for OSX? I'm working on a PPC G5, so don't say get BootCamp :>

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2006
    Microsoft have released a virtual pc image that enables you to run ie6 in a supported environment at the same time as having ie7 loaded on the main machine...

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    @Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis Yeah, a VMWare image would be much cooler for sure, as it would help out all developers, not just MS Shop developers. E.g. If I run Ubuntu or Fedora Core, or ??? running Virtual PC isn't an option. PS We still haven't heard, from this blog, or Chanel 9, where we are supposed to report bugs for public tracking.  Since Feedback was turned off, I've compiled at least 2 dozen new bugs, but only have this blog to report them, and as we've seen, they don't get the attention they need here (In the Chats with the IE team (also gone now!) several references to well known bugs commented on in this blog, were met with surprise by the IE team members) Transparency please! Transparency please! Transparency please! Transparency please!

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    As many know testing different versions of IE can be a pain, there&#8217;s no supported way to run two versions side by side (people have done it, but Microsoft don&#8217;t recommend it and can&#8217;t guarantee accuracy of results). Their reccomended

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    There's a much easier way: http://vernonkesner.com/36/run-ie6-and-ie7-on-same-system.php

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Thank you very much for offering at last this option. I just wish that Apple did something similar in order to test Safari for all those of us that just won't buy a new computer to test what bugs are in their browser. (and maybe then we might find something in OS-X that it's interesting)

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Alfonso, switch to osx development with textmate, firefox+firebug, safari, mamp, etc -- you'll never want to use windows again.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Can we please have some installation instructions? Do we run the installer on the real or virtual PC?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    if you want to try them with vmware on another OS you could always use the virtual pc importer for vmware ;) http://www.vmware.com/download/vmimporter.html

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    "This is awesome. However would you consider releasing another image with IE7 installed, so people with Win2k can test IE7?" How about releasing an image with IE7 to allow XP users to be able to access corporate applications that only run under IE6 or have corporate policies that only allow IE6, but still need to test with IE7?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    I think I have found a easier way.  I will go as far to say it is THE easy way. The guys over at TredoSoft have made a single installer for the IE 3 - 6 stand alone.  With the last update I have had no issues with IE 6. -Jon http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This may be a nice first step, but web developers shouldn't be forced to run a virtual machine to test a browser. There's no reason IE6 and IE7 shouldn't be able to run side by side on the same machine -- like every other browser. This is another case of lowered expectations for the IE team.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This is the first good thing you people have ever done. Thank you.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    My colleague, Pete , product manager for Internet Explorer , recently posted a write-up on the IE Team

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Has anyone tried converting the image yet so it works in vmware? My question would be with the activation, since the hardware appears differently to an OS in VMWare as opposed to VPC (if I remember correctly, been a while since I used VPC). If the activation doesn't fail when the conversion is complete, then it would be wonderful. Has anyone tried this? Does the activation fail, or is it activated no matter WHAT hardware appears? TIA for anyone who's tried this...

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Loaded it and working well. But the software FAILS Genuine Advantage for running Windows Update...  lists the key as lost or stolen.  Feh.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    As a web developer, this doesn't really do anything for me because:

  1. Virtual PC was already free
  2. An XP license is a negligable cost (if you don't already have an MSDN subscription)
  3. This does nothing for IE 5 & 5.5 Maybe IE 5 & 5.5 are so long ago inside the Microsoft campus that they can be forgotten, however in the real world people still use them. No I don't like it either. In addition Virtual PC is a headache because:
  4. You need to boot the machine up which takes a while
  5. You can't hit a local IP address
  6. It is noticably slower than running natively (Core duo2 6400, 2Gb RAM) When you compare this with how, say firefox works, the Microsoft solution just doesn't compare well. With firefox I can install multiple versions and run them side by side. In addition, this still doesn't answer why Microsoft chose to sic the lawyers onto the much more useful solution (http://www.skyzyx.com/archives/000094.php), which is closer to the Firefox style. I can see that there are some other sites that are offering the side by side IE tools, but still. Full credit to Microsoft for the attempt.
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    PeteL: Your blog comment says that running IE side by side doesn't run accurately but it doesn't specify what that means. Sure it crashes, but does running it side by side mean that the html render code is not rendering the pages the same as IE6/whatever was rendering them. And Javascript? Effectively your blog posting says don't do it because it crashes and it isn't sanctioned. It doesn't actually say what makes it "inaccurate".

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Another vote for the Tredosoft .exe from me. Installs standalone versions of ie3-6. Works like a dream alongside IE7 and allows cookies and sessions. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    With the new design of IE7 (less tied into the OS), would we need a VM for IE8 or would we be able to run both at the same time?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Testing IE6 + IE7: The browser upgrade changed functionality on existing webpages, and it will take awhile for the entire audience to switch to IE7+, so it will remain necessary to test work in both versions of the Microsoft browser. But because Microsoft

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    @ David Cameron "Maybe IE 5 & 5.5 are so long ago inside the Microsoft campus that they can be forgotten, however in the real world people still use them." People use also Mosaic, Netcape 3 and eLinks (see common statistics). Do you care for these users? If not, stop making noise about IE 5.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Yeah, I am in agreement with mostly everyone else here. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE Is the best solution by a long shot. Thanks to this little script, I've been able to install IE7, and then at the same time run IE3, IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, and IE7!  (IE3 and 4 crash a lot, but they are there nonetheless).  Now, it makes me wonder, why couldn't microsoft think of something as innovative (and FREE) as this is?  

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    http://joystyle.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!72E3E59C808D926B!1254.entry

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    i get 'd:IE6AC_VPC.EXE is not a valid win32 application' error when trying to open it. what gives? tried downloading it twice, same error. md5sum : c98071d11390bf10b39f9367a8eefa8c *IE6AC_VPC.EXE

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This is great, however I rely upon my hosts file to test locally hosted websites under development. This functionallity is a must for me, but unavailable in the VPC. Please add.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Those of us that couldn't wait for Microsoft to get around to doing this have already created similar virtual images ourselves. Not a very tidy solution since it requires a virtual machine. I suggest using VMWare too as it runs a bit faster and is also free.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    IE6 and IE7 side by side testing

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This "solution" shows the utter lack of talent at Microsoft. An application shouldn't be so ingrained into an operating system that an entire virtual environment is needed to use different versions. I used to believe it was a pain testing web applications for quirks in IE6, Mozilla, Opera, Safari, etc, but now, thanks to the dolts at MS, I have to run a virtual environment in addition to my normal rounds of testing, and I guess I can forget about supporting IE6 users after April 1st. Because the Software Engineers at Microsoft are clearly lacking in their ability to produce a well written operating system, I've provided a diagram below to prevent mistakes like this from happening again, courtesy of my undergraduate OS class: The right way to write an operating system: [hardware] [kernel] [applications] Notice how the applications sit entirely on their own level. Ingenuous! The wrong way to write an operating system: [hardware] [kernel+GUI+Browser+Mr.Clippy+...] [3rd party applications] Notice how the applications, like Internet Explorer, are integrated with the OS. While this may be good for protecting monopolies, it's bad for every one of your users. So please avoid it in the future!

  • One unhappy customer
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    @ anon & others needing directions:
  • Download and install Virtual PC 2004 if you don't already have it.
  • Download the .exe/image linked to above ("Download the Internet Explorer 6 Testing VPC Image")
  • Run that .exe to extract it to a directory of your choosing.
  • Run Virtual PC 2004, and "Create a New Virtual PC"
  • When prompted to select a Virtual Hard Drive, select the .vhd file that was created when you extracted the .exe you downloaded above.
  • Once you've created that Virtual PC, start it from Virtual PC 2004's Console. Once the virtual PC boots up, You can use Control Panel to add users, add it to a workgroup or domain, etc. But apparently you can't switch the Start menu and desktop to "Classic View". If someone can explain the reason for this, I'd love to hear it. But, to everyone who made this happen at MSFT: THANK YOU. I'm guessing it was a tough argument to win, but your efforts are very much appreciated. Not 10 minutes after I installed this, a web developer came around asking, "Hey, does anyone still have IE6?" I sympathize with those who say IE6 and IE7 should be able to run side-by-side -- but the reality is, they don't, and this is a decent enough practical solution.
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    @ Tony "My workplace has over 400 IBM Win2K SP4 workstations alone. There is nothing wrong with the OS. It runs our applications just fine." Several days ago I had to do some work at a workstation with Windows 2000. I FAILED TO USE IT. It doesn't recognize modern devices, doesn't let me work with the interface as I have get accustomed, half of my common software doesn't install or run. System administrator tried to proof that it all can be tuned and customized... but we made some calculations and discovered that bying Windows XP would be 2.5 times cheaper than attuning existing Windows 2000 to modern goals. Also we discovered that this company had already spent lots of money for OS tuning, but there was nothing to tune if it were Windows XP. So sticking to Windows 2000 is more expensive than buying Windows XP or maybe even Vista. Sorry for bad English, little offtopic and unpalatable truth.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    I would like to try this out but don't know how to start. Can you please show a instruction on how to install Virtual PC 2004 with Windows XP Professional SP2. Does this mean i can have 2 operating system running on 1 computer and i can test other beta application with Virtual PC 2004 with Professional SP2.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Thank you all very much for this. You've made all our lives easier.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    How can Microsoft determine who is a developer and who is a user?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Any simple install instructions?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    @Chris Tierney "This is great, however I rely upon my hosts file to test locally hosted websites under development. This functionallity is a must for me, but unavailable in the VPC. Please add." This is all ready possible - just edit the hosts file in the VM

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Will this image run under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 as well?

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This is kind of cool if you ask me.  I have used ie6 as standalone but yes, no accurate representations was an issue, at least to me. Since this is free i still don't get why people are complaining about it. Oh, and by the way, the easy instructions in case anybody missed them:

  1. Download and install virtual pc.
  2. Download and install this image.
  3. Start Virtual PC.
  4. When it asks for a Hard Drive image, point it to where you uncompressed this image.
  5. Boot up the image.
  6. Develop and test your work. A TIP: Hibernate the Virtual Machine, so when you need to go back then you can boot it up faster. Expect to spend some dough on ram so it can run a bit faster. And stop whinning.
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Or, if you're on Linux, this has been working just fine for me: http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page Wine + IE6 + IE7. Works like a champ.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    This is great news, nice one. I'd love to see an image for 5.5. Rich

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Brian is writing on his blog that Microsoft offers a free Windows XP including Internet Explorer 6 as

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    Thanks Brian, I already did the same, but offering a free VPC image including IE6 is great. Michael

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    People use also Mosaic, Netcape 3 and eLinks (see common statistics). Do you care for these users? If not, stop making noise about IE 5. Which "common statistics" and why do you trust them? I used to test with Mosaic, but gave up when I found it 1) had trouble with virtual hosts and 2) kept crashing. I don't think I've ever tested with Netscape 3. However, I do test in ELinks and so should we all. For at least four reasons:

  1. Testing only in the dominant browsers is a pernicious practice. Our sites will normally outlast current browsers. They should be standards-based. And they should ideally be open to all comers.
  2. It's a current, supported browser, unlike Mosaic, Netscape 3, or Internet Explorer LTE 6.
  3. If you're blind and you don't have the resources to shell out hundreds to thousands of pounds on Windows software and compatible hardware, then you're not at all unlikely to find yourself using ELinks as your primary browser. Not only should we be testing with ELinks, we should ideally be /listening/ to it with Orca, LSR (Linux Screen Reader), or SpeakUp. That audience may be small, but that doesn't mean it's an unimportant audience. It's an audience that can't easily switch to a (better) readily available alternative, which means they come under the consideration of WCAG 1.0.
  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2006
    IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine Virtual PC with Windows XP as a free download for testing IE6 (tags: browsers software Windows development)...

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    Great release! Thanks on behalf of all the other webdevs out there. But you know how it is... hand them the little finger and they want the whole arm. ;) So what about the even older versions of IE? On our website, we still have to accomodate for a lot of users with IE5.0 and IE 5.5, and sadly there's no way to force them to upgrade. Are there plans to release images for those browsers as well?

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    In the past, even through Virtual PC's dlls get shared and you lose the clean room environment of a pure install - and often have bugs that are unique to the dual install machine - how does this install prevent that? Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    How do I get this to point to a local web server? My site is staged on the host machine. The virtual PC thinks 'localhost' points to itself.

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    ok, i figured out a workaround for 'not a valid win32 application' extract it using winzip. i wonder if this is a problem related to my wextract.exe error 'a required resource cannot be located' IE6AC_VPC.EXE has version number of 6.0.6000.16385 ie6setup.exe has a version number of 6.0.2800.1106 both appear to be compressed cabs made with wextract. terminating, terminating, terminating....

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    @ rc, "So sticking to Windows 2000 is more expensive than buying Windows XP or maybe even Vista." Perhaps in your work place, but not mine. Every work environment has it's own set of in house tools, applications, etc. Therefore each workplace has different requirements. The costs involved for training staff, testing and updating applications, possible hardware upgrades, and so forth are all in addition to volume licensing. It's not my place to determine the correct work flow for when the upgrade will be completed by 2010, but rest assured that gives Vista 3 years to mature and become a viable alternative to XP. Of course even if running Vista we still have to be able to test IE6 in three years time. Although, being able to test IE7 on 2K today would be much appreciated.

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    Now that I'm running Vista with IE7 on my main work machine, I need to ensure that I have an easy way

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    @ Tony well grab this vpc image and install ie7 on it. this image runs on win2k you know, i'm using it right now.

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    Microsoft knows the pain of web developers who have been trying to test their websites in both IE6 and

  • Anonymous
    December 02, 2006
    That are very good informations. I wonder if there's any install tutorial for this also, please?

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    I'am Windows XP Home user - so VPC doesn't run on my machine!!! Where I can find an image for VMWARE Player????

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Have you installed Internet Explorer 7 -- either by going and getting it or having it come to you -- but feel the need for a little retro browser action? If there are sites you use that don't work with...

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    @rc http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers Following a link from there to the TheCounter statistics, here's their list for the month till 3 Dec: http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2006/December/browser.php The IE 5.x series is 5th (above Opera even, which I would test on) with about 2000 times as much usage as Netscape 3.x. The other browsers you mention don't even figure (though could be in the 'Unknown' listing). Still think they should be considered equally unimportant? Besides, I'm pretty confident sites I do will display in Netscape 3 or a text browser (in fact, I do test in text browsers), they just won't look very interesting. They're all based on quite straightforward HTML - paragraphs and lists and anchors etc. Without the CSS or JavaScript, the old browsers should handle them no problem. Old versions of IE are a different case though. It's not that they're old which is a problem, it's that they're full of their own idiosyncratic little bugs you need to correct for. The time will come when I won't bother, and just let them see unstyled content like on even older browsers, but I don't think the usage figures justify it for IE5 and IE5.5 yet.

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Pete LePage posts that there is a new Virtual PC image preloaded with Windows XP SP2, IE6 and the IE7

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    [Cross-posted from http://blogs.msdn.com/cbowen] Pete LePage posts that there is a new Virtual PC image...

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Microsoft released AS A FREE DOWNLOAD a Virtual Machine image that contains a pre-activated Windows XP SP2 installation, Internet Explorer 6 and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit. With this VPC Image, you can run IE7 as the standard browser in your PC, and have

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Been doing this for months. 1 word: vmware

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    @ compn, "well grab this vpc image and install ie7 on it. this image runs on win2k you know, i'm using it right now." Of course the answer would be so simple. Well hopefully the others that have recommended this can take your advice as well. "The VPC image runs in a virtual machine that offers all of the functionality of a full IE6 installation without giving it any access to its host machine’s hard drive, registry, etc. You can make as many modifications as you want to the virtual machine without affecting your host installation at all." I really should listen to Aedrin's advice and read before I post. I totally misread this as being unable to access the VPCs registry, therefore would not be able to upgrade IE6 to IE7 on the image. Does the image pass WGA? Has anyone found a work around that allows the image IE to view local directories of the host computer so that parallel work flows don't have to be maintained? This was mentioned before regarding local IP assignment issues.

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    IE 7 succeeded well. one can read so well rss feeds :) when does new update come of outlook?

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    O pessoal ligado nas Web Standards apesar de se queixar do IE sabe que ele domina o mercado (pessoalmente...

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    @tony "Does the image pass WGA? Has anyone found a work around that allows the image IE to view local directories of the host computer so that parallel work flows don't have to be maintained?" well i dunno about it passing WGA... some other people have said it does not. there is "C:Program FilesMicrosoftInternet Explorer 7 Readiness Toolkit" in the image , which i think links to the ie7 daily builds. my full instructions download vpc image extract it using winzip download vpc add new vpc from default settings select the vhd that you extracted from image go into settings for networking and under network adapter 1 select shared networking (nat) this should make vpc open a NAT router for your vpc to connect to your lan/internet. then you can map a network drive using the ip, e.g. \192.168.0.1C , from within your vpc to access your local harddrive's shared folders. good luck.

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Even with Apple's programs you can run multiple versions of them (Safari 1.0, 1.2, 2.0) at the same time.

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Great work. Thank you! Vincent

  • Anonymous
    December 03, 2006
    Thanks so much for doing this! This is definitely a great step in the right direction. Thanks Again !

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    I'd like to echo the other users who would prefer the VM to have IE7 installed instead of IE6 - our corporate policy will NOT allow us to install IE7 on our machines due to it breaking existing applications.  I need a way to test IE7 without installing it on the host OS.  However, kudos for getting this far...it's a big step past my usual habit of keeping 4-5 old machines around.

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    Have you tried to update the VM? Windows Genuine Advantage says the key is either stolen or lost.

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    Another vote for an IE 7 image.   Right now, my audience is 100% IE 6 so guess which one I want to run in a virtual machine and which one I want to run native.   And, if anyone asks, you can't upgrade the image to IE 7 since it fails the WGA check (what?!).

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    you cannot test HTTPS sites where you have to log into them (using basic authentication). i get an error using the IE6/7 standalone browser. so this VM IE6 is great for me. thanks!

  • Anonymous
    December 04, 2006
    I have win XP Home. is there any way to use this? (Virtual PC 2004/7 only seem to work on XP Pro). Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    Great news.. I will definately try it out.

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    @Tim "our corporate policy will NOT allow us to install IE7 on our machines" For a web developer machine there cannot exist any "corporate policy". A developer MUST have the possibility to install or uninstall on his machine everything he needs. Otherwise he simply cannot do his work.

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    only one question : why not vmware ?

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    Well, I am running an Intel Mac. I downloaded Virtual PC (not real interested in running virualization inside virtualization with Parallels but...) as I run the installer for VPC it says "This processor is not compatible." or something to that effect. i can't install VPC. So, with the new Parallels they have the conversion tool. i went ahead and converted the VPC image to Parallels. I load it up in parallels and it says, "Due to significant hardware changes you must activate this version of windows." and it won't activate. I'm on hold with MS to determine what to do, they will probably tell me I can't do what I'm doing. Why the heck didn't they use a version of XP that didn't need windows activation?!

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    HOW AGONIZING!!! So, I called to get this thing activated. The first person got stuck on "Was this a pre-installed version of windows or retail copy?" And I had to say it's a downloadable image from the Microsoft Website. He transferred me to someone else. With that person I got so far as him saying, "Do you have the CD?" and I told him (again) that it was a downloadable image, no CD. He said, "Can you look on the side of the computer for a sticker?" I had to say again, IT'S A DOWNLOADABLE IMAGE, THERE'S NO STICKER. He said, we need the product key to activate this, can you look on the side of the computer? He just wasn't getting it that this is a pre-installed Virtual PC image that thought there were significant computer changes needing re-activation. ugh.  I gave up and I trashed the Image. I'll have to probably install another Virtual copy of windows in Parallels with IE 6 only.

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    Yet another vote for a VPC with IE7 installed instead of IE6 (and not able to upgrade to IE7 because of WGA). No matter what your corporate policy about IE7 may be, installing a new browser on a production PC and having the older (stable? compatible?) one only available in a Virtual Machine seems backwards to me. (By the way, all of our web developers still run Windows 2000 on older PCs. XP does not offer any significant enough advantages to warrant upgrading, which would also require newer hardware.) Compatibility with IE7 is what needs tested, not IE6!

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    "Those who in the end of 2006 still use Windows 2000 (!!!), should continue working with Office 97, programming in Ada" and driving a 66 cobra? http://www.dragtimes.com/Shelby%20American-Series-1-SC-Timeslip-3451.html http://www.mx6.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-668.html w2k is only ~5 1/2 years old. http://www.google.com/search?q=Windows+2000+released+February

  • Anonymous
    December 05, 2006
    Yet another vote for IE7 in the virtual machine. We have a a third party ITIL/ITSM  product that does not work with IE7 which all our developers need access to, and the supplier has told us support for IE7 will not be about until 2nd quarter next year, thus upgrading to IE7 is not an option.

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2006
    Is there a stand alone IE7 application that doesn't integrate and make your computer evil.

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2006
    To our kind friends on the IE 7  Development/Program team - we need the ability to update the IE6 vhd image to IE7 via the WGA process (currently broken, as noted in other blogs), or we need an IE7 vhd.  ASAP, as always!  Can you help?

  • Anonymous
    December 06, 2006
    oh dear, so it means I would have to install another copy of sqlserver, mysql, php, clone a copy of all the web files i have running locally onto the vm inorder to just view it?

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2006
    As many others have mentioned, it does not appear that you can upgrade the supplied XP IE6 image to install IE7. Tried both through WindowsUpdate and IE7 direct download. Many large corporations still have IE6 on XP and we need to dev/test with IE7 before adoption.

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2006
    Thanks tony... seems awfully complicated just to use the browser... not to mention the resource hog.. think i'll go for the standalone, unsupported ie6 somewhere further up the thread

  • Anonymous
    December 07, 2006
    Can't there just be a developer installation of ie7 that doesn't uninstall ie6?  Why does installation have to be so rigid?  It doesn't have to be this way.

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2006
    Another vote for an IE7 vhd, or the ability to update the current IE6 vhd to IE7.

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2006
    I use vmware player for this. I test all browsers in both linux and windows. It's all free too and doesn't hog or crash your computer. VPC is still VPC no matter how MS releases it--still buggy and slow.

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 09, 2006
    Microsoft software engineers demon-strated foresight and vision when integrating IE in the operating system. We have a fine, fine system in our posession - relied upon by thousands of applications and doing untold good for mankind! Thank you for these free virtual machine images. Microsoft, you make our lives so easy. Some would say too easy. Usability at the forefront as usual. Common-sense and the highest technology given to the masses. I love it.

  • Anonymous
    December 09, 2006
    Microsoft virtualization is a joke

  • Anonymous
    December 09, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    December 10, 2006
    What happens about any critical security updates for these VM's?

  • Anonymous
    December 11, 2006
    liar ! A virtual machine stay a machine, even virtual ! go linux !

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    pingback from http://www.medi-vet.com/detail.aspx~ID~2873

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    Count me in for either a fix to the WGA requirements for the upgrade from IE6 to IE7 on the virtual machine or the release of another .vhd image that has 7 installed instead of 6. I understand that MS expects us to upgrade to 7 yesterday, but the reality of computing in a corporate environment is that we can only do those things that the IT group policies allow. (and to the poster who said developers shouldn't have any restrictions in their dev environments, well, I'm with you in spirit buddy, but I have to live and work in the real world)

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    If you're applied the IE7 update from Windows Update, and you're going.... "GOSH! I can no longer login

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2007
    Well, I finally took the plunge and installed IE7 on my Macbookpro! Of course, before I did, I looked at all the alternatives for keeping IE6 running too. Evolt.org have standalone installers for Internet Explorer 5, 5.5 & 6 available for download but

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2007
    IE 7's market share is growing quickly, still, developers will continue to need to test layouts and DHTML on IE 6 for some time to come. Sadly, there is no reliable way to run both IE 6 and IE 7...

  • Anonymous
    March 08, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2007
    Многие спрашивают, как обеспечить работу обозревателей IE6 и IE7 в одной системе. Как уже писал Крис...

  • Anonymous
    March 14, 2007
    After my last post, we have a nice, clean starting point for our website. Which is great, but in order to take it to the next level, we should probably get a nice development environment up and running.First, we'll start...

  • Anonymous
    March 20, 2007
    In my original blog post about releasing the IE6 Virtual PC Image, we mentioned that it would expire

  • Anonymous
    June 02, 2007
    For testing purposes, I want to be able to run both Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 on my Windows XP system. Is that possible, and if so, how do I get it working?...

  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2007
    So -- you want to run multiple versions of Internet Explorer side-by-side for testing purposes. No problem, it's simple! Oh, wait -- no. It's that other thing. Complicated. Luckily some other people have done most of the hard work for you, so i

  • Anonymous
    June 08, 2007
    IEBlog : IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine Many of you have asked how to run IE6 and IE7 in a side by side environment. As Chris Wilson blogged about early this year, it&#8217;s unfortunately not so easy...

  • Anonymous
    August 20, 2007
    Just a quick blog post to let you know we’ve updated the IE6 (XP SP2) and the IE7 (XP SP2) VPC images

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2007
    rocket science movie baltimore

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2007
    It seems I'm about to hit a month of no posting, so before that happens, let me share with you one of

  • Anonymous
    September 12, 2007
    It seems I&#39;m about to hit a month of no posting, so before that happens, let me share with you one

  • Anonymous
    January 24, 2008
    Your story was featured in Drigg! Here is the link to vote it up and promote it: http://kidtube.nfshost.com/Firstcategory/gee_another_lion

  • Anonymous
    November 15, 2008
    IETesterhttp://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage UsingVirtualMachine?Bad...

  • Anonymous
    February 02, 2009
    Ed eccolo qui, il desktop di windows 7, perfettamente integrato nella Virtual Box proposta da Sun. Devo dire che è simpatico, anche se sostanzialmente inutile, avere un sistema operativo nell'altro. L'unica utilità è quella di avere sullo stesso pc,

  • Anonymous
    March 06, 2009
    Web designers and developers rejoice&mdash;browser compatibility testing just got a whole lot easier! For years we&#39;ve been complaining to Microsoft about the fact that you can&#39;t have more than one version of Internet Explorer installed on a computer