All IE Browsers Standalone On Same PC
Yousif Al Saif of Tredosoft is probably best known for the IE7 standalone browser installer that can run isolated on a Windows machine without disturbing the version already installed. I wrote about this in “IE7, web standards and css support“.
Now he posted an article that makes it dead simple to run multiple Internet Explorers. It’s a simple one-click installer that makes you choose any of the following versions of IE:
- IE 6
- IE 5.5
- IE 5.0
- IE4.01
- IE3
Here’s a screenshot of the installer:
Standalone versions of Internet Explorers have been available for a long time. (i blogged about it before back in January and February). The new and best thing is that it’s now dead simple and really really easy to use.
IE7 standalone
Tredosoft also has an installer that installs the most recent version of IE 7 as a standalone program (without removing IE6). It actually works very well for me, and I love that I’m able to test websites with the upcoming IE7 browser (currently release candidate 1).
More info:
- Tredosoft: Install multiple versions of IE on your PC
- Tredosoft: IE7 in standalone mode
Technorati Tags: browser, internet explorer, multiple browsers, ie, ie7, ie6, ie55, ie5, ie50, ie4, ie3, windows, standalone
September 28th, 2006 at 10:43 (GMT-1)
[…] Update: All IE Browsers Standalone On Same PC (September 28, 2006) solves the problem. […]
September 28th, 2006 at 16:19 (GMT-1)
brilliant, thanks for the link.
something like this would be very useful for safari as well …
October 19th, 2006 at 09:29 (GMT-1)
I find running different Internet Explorers through Wine (for Linux) very useful. Theres even a nice installer: ies4linux. IE7 can currently only run as a rendering engine inside IE6, but work is progressing nicely (trouble with WGA). see screenshot of border chaos demo which IE6 fails, but IE7 passes.
The installer actually creates multiple registries, so the browser versions don’t collide. Flash, Shockwave etc. plugins work.
This is good (news) for those who would rather develop on non-windows but who a forced comply with IE bugs ;-)
October 24th, 2006 at 17:02 (GMT-1)
[…] Com uma pesquisada rápida no Google, acabei achando esse link no Sinistras, para rodar versões diferentes também do Internet Explorer. […]
December 2nd, 2006 at 21:11 (GMT-1)
IE team has made a virtual PC image available with IE6 and IE7 for testing purposes. Note that this runs as a virtual PC (which I presume will run slower and require more time to startup than the Tredosoft installer that I link to in the article).
IE6 and IE7 running on a single machine.
Also note that the virtual PC image is time limited to April 2007
December 6th, 2006 at 15:05 (GMT-1)
I’ve noticed a difference between actually installed versions of IE and some of these standalones, notably IE6. The standalones have not accurately reflected what an installed version renders. I can see the difference by using another computer with IE6 or a VMWare image, for example. The standalone comes close, but ultimately fails on a number of CSS rendering details.
December 6th, 2006 at 16:43 (GMT-1)
Reader,
what actual CSS rendering details do you mention?
Please provide details here, because that would be of great benefit to the readers on this blog.
As far as I know, the CSS rendering is accurate, conditional comments don’t work, but using built-in functions (as bookmarks, certificates, etc.) will give problems and might be shared between the IE versions.
Please prove me wrong, and provide more details on the bugs you are referring to.
January 2nd, 2007 at 14:23 (GMT-1)
Be aware that restraints in IE5.0 may not show, if you for instance use IE6 as base. This may fool you! :-(
January 2nd, 2007 at 15:17 (GMT-1)
Martin,
could you be more specific on which IE5.0 restraints you mean?
January 2nd, 2007 at 16:00 (GMT-1)
Hello Jesper!
It might be fixed by now, but look at http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/conditional_comments.asp and search for “using multiple versions”. Here is an extract:
If you’re using multiple versions of Internet Explorer on the same PC, be aware that these versions identify themselves as the most recent version installed. So, unless you’ve implemented Manfred Staudinger’s solution, you’ll have to take this into consideration when testing documents that include CC. This means that you’ll have to trick the standalone version with a “fake” expression; for example, you’d use “6” instead of “5” and then change it back to “5” once testing is done. For the same reason, you should refrain from giving feedback to people asking for a “site check in IE 5”, because your standalone version would not pick up an important HTML block from the markup.
-Martin
March 30th, 2008 at 18:52 (GMT-1)
[…] Com uma pesquisada rápida no Google, acabei achando esse link no Sinistras, para rodar versões diferentes também do Internet Explorer. […]