Using Virtual PC 2004 for Internet Explorer 7.0

[Nathan Sokalski]

I am a Web Developer and would like to be able to test my sites on both
Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0. Somebody in one of the
microsoft.public newsgroups suggested that I use Microsoft Virtual PC to do
this. However, after looking at several of the links on
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx it sounded like
Microsoft Virtual PC was intended to run a second operating system on top
of. However, I want to be able to install and run both IE6 and IE7 under the
same OS (my current one, which is Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2). In
other words, I just want to be able to run whichever version of IE I want
depending on which shortcut I click, the same way some people might
sometimes use Firefox or Netscape instead of IE just by double-clicking a
different shortcut. The reason I am nervous about using Microsoft Virtual PC
is because it sounds like I will need to install a second intallation of XP,
and that I will be a different user in IE7 than I will in IE6 since I will
be logged in under a different username and password. Any ideas? If I
remember correctly, it was possible to have IE5.5 and IE6.0 installed at the
same time (not that many people did, since they didn't have the huge
differences like IE6.0 and IE7.0 do), so I just find it somewhat surprising
that Microsoft is making it so hard for us developers to find a nice easy
way to do our testing. I have been looking forward to IE7 ever since I first
heard about it, and have read every update and blog I could find on it, but
unfortunately IE6.0 won't be truely gone for quite a while yet, so until I
have an easy way to test both versions, I'm not upgrading.

 

[Anando [MS-MVP]]

Hello Nathan,

I am not sure if IE6 and IE7 can co-exist on the same Windows installation,
but the idea of using Virtual PC is pretty neat. Virtual PC runs within
Windows and you can install any OS under it and run any software on the
guest OS. Its a neat idea because you can blow up and corrupt stuff under
the Virtual PC environment without actually affecting your main host OS.

The main overview of the product can give you a lot of information

Virtual PC 2004 Product Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/evaluation/overview2004.mspx

Download Virtual PC 2004 SP1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...9D-DFA8-40BF-AFAF-20BCB7F01CD1&displaylang=en

--
Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
Microsoft Certified Professional
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
http://www.mvps.org

Folder customizations
http://www.anando.org/folder

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am a Web Developer and would like to be able to test my sites on
both Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0. Somebody in one
of the microsoft.public newsgroups suggested that I use Microsoft
Virtual PC to do this. However, after looking at several of the links
on http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx it sounded
like Microsoft Virtual PC was intended to run a second operating
system on top of. However, I want to be able to install and run both
IE6 and IE7 under the same OS (my current one, which is Microsoft
Windows XP Professional SP2). In other words, I just want to be able
to run whichever version of IE I want depending on which shortcut I
click,

You can't have both IE6 and IE7 available at the same time, so Virtual PC is
a good way to do this.

 

[Vanguard]

I am a Web Developer and would like to be able to test my sites on
both Internet Explorer 6.0 and Internet Explorer 7.0. Somebody in one
of the microsoft.public newsgroups suggested that I use Microsoft
Virtual PC to do this. However, after looking at several of the links
on http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx it sounded
like Microsoft Virtual PC was intended to run a second operating
system on top of. However, I want to be able to install and run both
IE6 and IE7 under the same OS (my current one, which is Microsoft
Windows XP Professional SP2). In other words, I just want to be able
to run whichever version of IE I want depending on which shortcut I
click, the same way some people might sometimes use Firefox or
Netscape instead of IE just by double-clicking a different shortcut.
The reason I am nervous about using Microsoft Virtual PC is because
it sounds like I will need to install a second intallation of XP, and
that I will be a different user in IE7 than I will in IE6 since I
will be logged in under a different username and password. Any ideas?

<snip>

Doesn't matter which user you are logged in as. What matters is that
you configure both installs to be exactly the same as each other with
the only difference being one has IE6 and another is IE7. So create
one VM with IE6 and another VM with IE7 installed.

VPC makes a great sandbox for testing.

 

[Guest]

Ola Nathan Sokalski,

Before you install it read the VirtualPCOverview.doc (1)

Your dream solution :
"VPC virtual machine image containing a pre-activated Windows XP SP2, IE6
and the IE7 Readiness Toolkit to help facilitate your testing and
development." (2)

(1) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/evaluation/techoverview.mspx
(2)http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/11/30/ie6-and-ie7-running-on-a-single-machine.aspx

good luck !
Miguel Ângelo Soares