<p>I want to test the web pages I create in all the modern versions of Internet Explorer (6, 7 and 8 beta) but I work mainly on a Mac and often don't have direct access to a PC.</p>

[{'answer_id': 55578, 'author': 'georgebrock', 'author_id': 5168, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5168', 'pm_score': 7, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p><strong>Update:</strong> Microsoft now provide virtual machine images for various versions of IE that are ready to use on all of the major OS X virtualisation platforms (<a href="https://www.virtualbox.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VirtualBox</a>, <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/overview.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VMWare Fusion</a>, and <a href="http://www.parallels.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Parallels</a>).</p>\n\n<p>Download the appropriate image from: <a href="https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/</a></p>\n\n<hr>\n\n<p>On an Intel based Mac you can run Windows within a virtual machine. You will need one virtual machine for each version of IE you want to test against.</p>\n\n<p>The instructions below include free and legal virtualisation software and Windows disk images.</p>\n\n<ol>\n<li>Download some virtual machine software. The developer disk images we\'re going to use are will work with either <a href="http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VMWare Fusion</a> or <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sun Virtual Box</a>. VMWare has more features but costs $80, Virtual Box on the other hand is more basic but is free for most users (see <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Licensing_FAQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Virtual Box licensing FAQ</a> for details).</li>\n<li>Download the IE developer disk images, which are free from Microsoft: <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&amp;displaylang=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...</a></li>\n<li>Extract the disk images using <a href="http://www.cabextract.org.uk/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">cabextract</a> which is available from <a href="http://www.macports.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MacPorts</a> or as source code (Thanks to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/6262/clinton">Clinton</a>).</li>\n<li>Download Q.app from <a href="http://www.kju-app.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.kju-app.org/</a> and put it in your /Applications folder (you will need it to convert the disk images into a format VMWare/Virtual Box can use)</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p>At this point, the process depends on which VM software you\'re using.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Virtual Box users</strong></p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Open a Terminal.app on your Mac (you can find it in /Applications/Utilities) and run the following sequence of commands, replacing <em>input.vhd</em> with the name of the VHD file you\'re starting from and <em>output.vdi</em> with the name you want your final disk image to have:</p>\n\n<pre><code>/Applications/Q.app/Contents/MacOS/qemu-img convert -O raw -f vpc "input.vhd" temp.bin\nVBoxManage convertdd temp.bin "output.vdi"\nrm temp.bin\nmv "output.vdi" ~/Library/VirtualBox/VDI/\nVBoxManage modifyvdi "output.vdi" compact\n</code></pre></li>\n<li>Start Virtual Box and create a new virtual machine</li>\n<li>Select the new VDI file you\'ve just created as the boot hard disk</li>\n</ol>\n\n<p><strong>VMWare fusion users</strong></p>\n\n<ol>\n<li><p>Open a Terminal.app on your Mac (you can find it in /Applications/Utilities) and run the following commands, replacing <em>input.vhd</em> and <em>output.vmdk</em> with the name of the VHD file you\'re working on and the name you want your resulting disk image to have:</p>\n\n<pre><code>/Applications/Q.app/Contents/MacOS/qemu-img convert -O vmdk -f vpc "input.vhd" "output.vmdk"\nmv "output.vmdk" ~/Documents/Virtual\\ Machines.localized/\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>This will probably take a while (It takes around 30 minutes per disk image on my 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook w/ 2Gb RAM).</p></li>\n<li>Start VMWare Fusion and create a new virtual machine</li>\n<li>In the advanced disk options select "use and existing disk" and find the VMDK file you just created</li>\n</ol>\n'}, {'answer_id': 55587, 'author': 'Jason Navarrete', 'author_id': 3920, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3920', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Once you\'ve virtualized Windows on your Mac, you can also try the <strong>Mutiple IE</strong> installer to get a variety of flavors of Internet Explorer without having to create separate VM instances.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Multiple IE Installer</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>If you\'re just wanting to see a simple screenshot of how the page will render in various browsers, you can try the free service <strong>browsershots</strong> or there are a number of services that will automatically test your pages in multiple browsers.</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://browsershots.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">browsershots.org</a></li>\n</ul>\n'}, {'answer_id': 55593, 'author': 'Gulzar Nazim', 'author_id': 4337, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4337', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://browsershots.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Browsershots</a> is another option if you just want to get screenshots..</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 55600, 'author': 'Eugene', 'author_id': 1155, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/1155', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>If you don\'t have a copy of Windows that you could run in a virtual machine (VMware also isn\'t free), you can try <a href="http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Does_IEs_4_Linux_Work_with_Mac_OSX" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IEs4Linux</a>. It will require you configure some open source stuff on your Mac, but it is all free. You\'ll at least need fink, wine, and cabextract. See the link above for some specific command line directions. It\'s not that hard!</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 55832, 'author': 'Hagelin', 'author_id': 5156, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5156', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://litmusapp.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer" title="Litmus">Litmus</a> is another web-based alternative.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 55971, 'author': 'pauldunlop', 'author_id': 2152, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/2152', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I\'ve used Codeweavers Crossover product for doing this from time to time. </p>\n\n<p><a href="http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/</a></p>\n\n<p>It\'s a different option to virtualisation, and gives you a little more control than some of the hosted solutions. That said, it\'s based on WINE, and so you can potentially get all the problems and issues that come with doing it that way. That said, for basic testing without plugins, etc, it works great.</p>\n\n<p>I\'m not 100% sure about support for IE8, you\'d need to check that out, but it definitely gives you native support for 6 and 7.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 62377, 'author': 'Kristian J.', 'author_id': 4588, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4588', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There\'s a OSX distribution of IEs4 Linux called <a href="http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ies4osx</a>, which has worked fine for me without any configuration. </p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 65933, 'author': 'Joe Strazzere', 'author_id': 120529, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/120529', 'pm_score': -1, 'selected': False, 'text': "<p>If this is a business web site (or a serious site where it is important that it actually works on IE), then don't take the cheap route - invest in a Windows machine or two.  Your customers will thank you.</p>\n\n<p>Otherwise, virtualize.</p>\n"}, {'answer_id': 464080, 'author': 'Community', 'author_id': -1, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/-1', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Browsershots is nice, but useless if you need to test functionality rather than just overall visual rendering.</p>\n\n<p>IEs4OSX and IEs4Linux have serious drawbacks. They have no real support for plugins and extensions like Flash and Silverlight. Rendering isn\'t precise and they\'re highly unstable. For testing you really need an actual version of IE running on Windows, but you don\'t need to have a dedicated box.</p>\n\n<p>IE images on VirtualBox is really the best, and easiest way to go.</p>\n\n<p>I have a <a href="http://www.10voltmedia.com/blog/2008/12/screencast-install-internet-explorer-on-osx-using-virtualbox/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">screencast here</a> if anyone\'s looking for a visual walk-through.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 466306, 'author': 'gareth_bowles', 'author_id': 10715, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/10715', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>Yet another Web based alternative (although as Jeff said, not much use for testing functionality) is <a href="http://www.browsercam.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.browsercam.com</a></p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 1362080, 'author': 'user113044', 'author_id': 113044, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/113044', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There is an issue with the latest release (January 2009) of the VHDs. The VHD sees there are hardware changes and prompts for a license key, evenutally locking users out. As yet there is no known workaround.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 4820088, 'author': 'ma11hew28', 'author_id': 242933, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/242933', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>You could use <a href="http://spoon.net/Browsers/" rel="nofollow">Spoon Browsers</a> (web-based) once it becomes available for Mac.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 9440667, 'author': 'chadoh', 'author_id': 249801, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/249801', 'pm_score': 1, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p><a href="http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/04/internet-explorer-for-mac-ie7-ie8-ie-9-free/" rel="nofollow">OSX Daily explains how to install Windows VMs with a single terminal command</a> (assuming you already <a href="https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads" rel="nofollow">have VirtualBox installed</a>). To summarize:</p>\n\n<p>IE 7:</p>\n\n<pre><code>curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="7" bash\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>IE 8:</p>\n\n<pre><code>curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="8" bash\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>IE 9:</p>\n\n<pre><code>curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash\n</code></pre>\n\n<p>ALL THE IEs!:</p>\n\n<pre><code>curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash\n</code></pre>\n'}, {'answer_id': 10387902, 'author': 'Timo Tijhof', 'author_id': 319266, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/319266', 'pm_score': 3, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>There\'s three different methods that I recommend:</p>\n\n<p><strong>Cloud-based interactive virtual machines</strong></p>\n\n<p>Use something like <a href="https://saucelabs.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SauceLabs</a> or <a href="http://browserstack.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">BrowserStack</a>. You\'ll be able to pick a browser of choice, enter a url and use a real OS with the real browser and test and interact as much as you need. Both of these also support setting up a tunnel to/from your own machine so any local hostnames will work fine.</p>\n\n<p>There is also <a href="http://crossbrowsertesting.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CrossBrowserTesting</a>, <a href="http://browserling.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">browserling</a>/<a href="http://testling.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">testling</a>, which seem to have similar services although I haven\'t used these myself.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Local virtualization</strong></p>\n\n<p>You can use <a href="http://www.virtualbox.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VirtualBox</a> (free and open-source, similar to VMWare or Parallels) to create one or more virtual machines on your computer. You may or may not know this, but you do not need to get an official copy of Microsoft Windows for these virtual machines. Microsoft offers free VM images of simplified Windows installations for the purposes of testing Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge (<strong><a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&amp;id=11575" rel="nofollow noreferrer">download</a></strong>). Check one of these articles to get that up and running:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://www.xairon.net/2011/06/testing-ie6-7-8-and-9-on-mac-os-x/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Testing IE6, 7, 8 and 9 on Mac OS X</a>, 2011-06, xairon.net</li>\n<li><a href="http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/04/internet-explorer-for-mac-ie7-ie8-ie-9-free/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Internet Explorer for Mac the Easy Way</a>, 2011-09, osxdaily.com</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>In the past, there were also native Mac applications (such as <a href="http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ies4osx</a>), or as a Windows application which requires a VM if you don\'t have Windows (such as <a href="http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IETester</a> or <a href="http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MultipleIEs</a>). The downside is that these emulations are often less stable than the real client, and are even harder to debug with because they don\'t run in the natural environment of the browser. Sometimes causing errors that don\'t occur in the real browser, and maybe not having bugs that the real browser would have.</p>\n\n<p><strong>Cloud-based screenshots factory</strong></p>\n\n<p>If you don\'t need interactivity and or need a cheaper solution (note that this method may not always be cheaper, do a little research before making assumptions) there are also services online that, like the previous one, have access to real browser/OS environments. But contrary to the previous, don\'t grant interactive access to the actual machines but only to get screenshots. This has both an upside and a downside. The downside is that you can\'t interact with it. The upside however is that most of these allow easy summarizing of screenshots so you don\'t have to start session after another and get screenshots.</p>\n\n<p>Some I\'ve used:</p>\n\n<ul>\n<li><a href="http://browsershots.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">BrowserShots</a> (free and used to be my favorite, although the slowness made alternatives more attractive)</li>\n<li><a href="https://browserlab.adobe.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Adobe BrowserLab</a> (also free, requires an Adobe ID. Not as much options and coverage as BrowserShots, but: no delay, instant screenshots, compare views and ability to let the screenshot be taken after a given number of seconds instead of right away (to test asynchronous stuff).</li>\n<li><a href="http://crossbrowsertesting.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">CrossBrowserTesting</a> (not free, but also has an interactive environment (see previous method) and a screenshot factory that is like your own private "BrowserShots" site)</li>\n</ul>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/55577', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/5168/']