How do you test your web apps for IE 6?

Question

I know, some people will say "IE 6 must die"; others will think this is a subjective/non-programming related question. But I'm desperate and did not know where else to ask.

I have an application and need to decide if i want to support IE 6 or not, so i wanted to test how it looks, what is failing or not failing. If the problems could be solved fast I would love to know its not a problem, if the problems are very big i would like to redirect the user to a page explaining that IE 6 is not supported.

So i need to be able to see the page in IE 6, I just installed a windows XP virtual machine and got IE 7 installed, can't find a way to downgrade to IE 6! So is there any "portable" version of IE 6 that i can run easily? An emulator? Something?

Answer 1

We use a standalone IE6 but when you go into the About section it appears as IE7. So I'd avoid that route if I'm honest.

My advice would be set up another virtual pc (Its only going to be for a browser, nothing intensive) just for IE6.

Answer 2

This questions is a repeat: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/574463/running-ie6-ie7-and-ie8-on-the-same-machine

Answer 3

You could try IE Tester. It allows you to test using the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5

Answer 4

Depending on the Service Pack of XP you may not be able to rollback to IE6.

The best way to test would be to use the Microsoft VHD images here under Virtual PC:

http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en

Mac OS http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx?pid=Mactopia_VPC&fid=BB545A70-CC7F-4902-B7B1-8E9D4ED665D2

Windows OS http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=04D26402-3199-48A3-AFA2-2DC0B40A73B6&displaylang=en

This should all cost you nothing.

Answer 5

Docker's suggestion's great! When I was testing in IE 6 I used another machine.

If you've installed IE7 and you want to test in IE6, you'll have to first uninstall IE7. When you unistal IE7 it will automatically roll you back to IE6.

There's no way to have both on the same machine (I found out the hard way) and that's why Docker's suggestion of setting up another virtual pc is so great.

-Frinny

Answer 6

I would attempt to find a XP Service Pack 1 CD, and install that in a VMWare instance. You can safely move up to SP2 or SP3 without upgrading IE.

Answer 7

I test it exactly the same way I test for Netscape 2.0 -- I don't.

There is no excuse for anyone to be running that outdate piece of crap.
What these companies need is a few support calls that end with "We are no longer able to support IE 6" and provide a list of companies that are also phasing out IE 6 support.

If Youtube can no longer support IE 6, with all of Google's resources behind it, then why should I?

The best thing that could happen would be for Google to put up an error page saying

"You appear to be using IE 6. Unfortunately, we are unable to provide search results to IE 6 clients"

Answer 8

Whilst I've upvoted and commented on "Nissan Fan", I have found BrowserShots http://www.browsershots.org/ to be quite good for previewing in multiple browsers (not just IE) and http://www.crossbrowsertesting.com/ quite good for remote testing.

Answer 9

On linux you can use ies4linux.

Answer 10

Have you heard of Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview ?

SuperPreview as a tool allows you to compare different rendering engines in a single unified interface. Simple clicks gives you comparisons between Internet Explorer 6, the native version of Internet Explorer installed, other browsers you may have installed locally – Firefox 3.5, Safari 3, Safari 4 – and even an bitmap images of website prototypes.

You can download the beta from here.