IE Emulator - simulate IE 6 in an OS with IE8 installed

Question

Possible Duplicates:
Running IE6, IE7, and IE8 on the same machine
Need a good IE6,7,8 standalone.

Hi guyz,

I have IE 8 on my desktop. But I need to test my asp.net website on IE6 and a couple of other versions of IE. Can you tell me if there is a way to simulate IE 6 without actually installing it(I dont have the permission to install previous versions of IE).

Answer 1

One of them http://browsershots.org/ and only a screen shot not a realy live view.

Answer 2

You could

• a) grab a standalone version of IE6 ( google for one.. tredosoft had some )

• b) use a virtual machine such as
  VirtualBox and create a new virtual
  partition on HD + new OS and get an
  OS that runs IE6 natively

Answer 3

Microsoft offers Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Images for this purpose; these are canned VMs offering Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8, running under virtual copies of Windows XP or Vista.

The VPC images are intended for use in Virtual PC and can also be made to work in VirtualBox or VMware Workstation (since each of those can import VPC images).

This assumes that you have permission to run virtualization software.

Answer 4

Microsoft recommends using a virtual machine.

Standalone versions of IE 6 are not a good idea to use. they sometimes use dlls of IE 8 so you could have the JavaScript engine of ie8 inside of a "standalone" IE 6. I read this somewhere on a Microsoft page but I forgot the link.

One cool tool I've found is made by Microsoft called superpreview. It allows you to view your pages side by side or on top of each other semi-transparently. The opaque view is cool since you can spot rendering inconsistencies right away.

Answer 5

You have some options to accomplish that:

1. Use browsershots.org. This will however only provide static renderings, so the behavior of the website cannot be observed.
2. Use a standalone IE6. I haven't tried one personally, but it is said to have some quirks. Might work well.
3. Install a windows xp into a virtual machine. This will give you 100% vanilla IE6, and leave your system clean. To keep the virtual disk small, you may consider installing some "tiny"-xp modification, or create one yourself with nlite.

Answer 6

I'm using this one IETester