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We're purchasing a dell laptop to use specifically for testing websites in old Internet Explorers. Dell lets us choose between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

(I'm a Mac user, so...) As I understand it:

  1. Installing IE9 will allow testing IE7 and IE8 via compatibility mode
  2. IE9 is NOT installable on Windows 8

Assuming #2 is correct, I understand that there's a VM option for installing old IEs on Windows 8, but I'd rather avoid VMs altogether (otherwise, we might as well use VMs on our Macs).

So then, as I see it –– and keeping in mind that this is just a testing machine, not a productivity one –– the best course of action is to get dell to ship the laptop with Windows 7 installed.

Does that sound like a reasonable course of action?

Or, do I have my facts wrong? Like, perhaps:

  1. IE9 is in fact installable on Windows 8(?)
  2. IE10, which is installable on Windows 8 allows emulating IE7 through IE9(?)
  3. It's actually not that painful to use VMs on Windows 8 for this purpose. Honestly this SU post did not convince me.

Any tips and informed opinions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance...

Community
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meetamit
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2 Answers2

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Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 or Windows 7 F12 developer tools allows you to select Browswer Mode from IE10 through to IE7.

IE 9 is not installable on Windows 8.

Internet Explorer 11 is already available on Windows 8.1 Preview.

David Marshall
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I'm a big fan of VMWare Fusion on the Mac. It costs US$50, but I prefer it over VirtualBox (which, granted, I haven't used that much). Using the download service on modern.ie, you can download self-extracting VMWare images for IE6-10 on XP through Win8, in various combinations. Follow the simple instructions on the webpage to extract the images, fire up VMWare, select File->Open... and you're good to go. If you install the VMWare tools (they may already be installed, I don't remember) you can copy and paste between OSX and Windows, share files, etc. It's a perfect solution if all you want to do is browser testing, and aside from the cost of VMWare Fusion it's free, and all of it is legal. Good luck!

MattDMo
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