Installing IE6 and IE7 side by side

[Nathan Sokalski]

Because I am a web developer I need to be able to test my pages on the
primary browsers, which very soon will include both IE6 and IE7, since users
that have not yet upgraded to Windows XP cannot install IE7. I want to be
able to have both IE6 AND IE7 installed on my system (I use Windows XP
Professional SP2) so that I can test my pages using both IE6 and IE7. Is
there any way to do this without purchasing any extra software (I might even
be willing to download and install free software if it is well-respected by
developers or IT professionals)? I currently have the IE7 installation
blocked, since for a while I expect that a lot of people will continue to
use IE6 (not to mention there are a lot of people that don't bother to or
know how to turn automatic updates on). However, at some point, I do need to
move over (not to mention I want to use IE7, but unfortunately right now
being able to test on IE6 is more important). If anybody knows of any free
way that I can have both IE6 and IE7 installed on the same machine I would
greatly appreciate the information. Thanks.

 

[Paul Adare]

microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin news group, Nathan Sokalski

Because I am a web developer I need to be able to test my pages on the
primary browsers, which very soon will include both IE6 and IE7, since users
that have not yet upgraded to Windows XP cannot install IE7. I want to be
able to have both IE6 AND IE7 installed on my system (I use Windows XP
Professional SP2) so that I can test my pages using both IE6 and IE7. Is
there any way to do this without purchasing any extra software (I might even
be willing to download and install free software if it is well-respected by
developers or IT professionals)? I currently have the IE7 installation
blocked, since for a while I expect that a lot of people will continue to
use IE6 (not to mention there are a lot of people that don't bother to or
know how to turn automatic updates on). However, at some point, I do need to
move over (not to mention I want to use IE7, but unfortunately right now
being able to test on IE6 is more important). If anybody knows of any free
way that I can have both IE6 and IE7 installed on the same machine I would
greatly appreciate the information. Thanks.

Virtual PC 2004 or Virtual Server 2005 R2 are both free and will allow
you to set up virtual machines in which you can run whatever
combination of OS/browser you like. More details on Microsoft's web
site.

 

[Nathan Sokalski]

What do I need to do to install IE7 only under Virtual PC (not install it on
my real machine)? Because IE7 will be getting installed by the Automatic
Updates of the Microsoft Update site, how can I force it to do the
installation running under Virtual PC? Thanks.