How to test my application on older version of IE?

Question

I have installed IE8 on my system. I usually test my application on this browser, but the problem arises when i got to know that the client is using IE7. Now how can i test my application on IE7?

One possible solution is to have dual booting on my system. So on version of Windows i can have IE7 and on another i can have IE8. But i really don't want to use this solution.

Another possible solution is to use PC Emulator [ Don't know what is this, just heard about these ]. Using which i can have multiple IE version simultaneously. Have you ever tried this solution? Please name any good FREE emulator.

Please let me know if there is any other better solution.

Answer 1

you can use

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

and here can you see all browser versions as picture

http://browsershots.org/

Answer 2

Microsoft provides a free set of Windows Virtual PC images for testing various versions of IE on various Windows service packs.

Virtual PC is also free.

Answer 3

Have you ever seen Microsoft Expression Web tool? It contains kick-ass tool for testing pages in various versions of IE - SuperPreview. And this tool also available free, you can download it here.
It's much more easy to use it instead of Virtual PC images. But it can't replace VPC completely because testing in clear environment is also very important.

Answer 4

You can also look at Adobe BrowserLab:

http://browserlab.adobe.com

Answer 5

I got the solution. :)

In IE8, click on Tools > Developer Tools | or press F12

Then in developer Tools > select the browser mode [ available: IE7, IE8, IE8 with compatibility view ]

This is what i was expecting. :)