[shinji]

I need to test sites in IE6 and IE7. What's the best way to do this? I have VMWare Fusion, should I just make a snapshot with IE6 installed and a snapshot with IE7 installed?

I know there's also this: IEBlog : IE6 and IE7 Running on a Single Machine

Has anyone tried that running through either VMware or Parallels? It seems weird virtualizing again inside of virtualization. Or I could use VMware converter to turn that into a VMware image, only problem is it expires in April 2008.

And I know there's a way with Crossover to do this but is that really render accurately? I'd rather see the site the way a surfer with IE6 installed out of the box sees it. Specifically I need to make sure sessions and forms work exactly as they would for someone using IE6 on Windows.

[Sven G]

There is also this (albeit not yet completely reliable, maybe):

ies4osx

... based on IEs4Linux and Darwine/WINE (as in CrossOver, but for free).

[shifuimam]

Your best bet for testing websites in multiple versions of IE is to use Windows (Boot Camp or VirtualBox are free, or you can pay for VMWare Fusion or Parallels), using MultipleIEs, which can be downloaded here:

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft

Upgrade XP to IE 7, and then install MultipleIEs so that you have IE 3.0-6.0 at your fingertips for testing. I use this at home for site testing, and it works beautifully.

[shinji]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Your best bet for testing websites in multiple versions of IE is to use Windows (Boot Camp or VirtualBox are free, or you can pay for VMWare Fusion or Parallels), using MultipleIEs, which can be downloaded here:

Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft

Upgrade XP to IE 7, and then install MultipleIEs so that you have IE 3.0-6.0 at your fingertips for testing. I use this at home for site testing, and it works beautifully.

Shifui and sven, do you know if either solution keeps sessions and forms intact and works exactly like if someone was running IE6 out of the box on Windows? It's not so much the rendering I'm concerned about, I need to know stuff like how hitting the back button will affect what's in a form etc.

I already have VMware Fusion with XP, it has IE7. So if it mimics how IE6 handles sessions/forms, that would be perfect.

[shifuimam]

Not exactly. IE 5+ uses the same preferences, history, saved passwords, and cookies files across the board - it's like trying to use an older version of iTunes, and it overwrites your iTunes DB file (although this isn't the case with the earliest versions of iTunes, since the DB file was a different name and in a different location).

If you want a completely pure install, using individual VMs for each version of IE is going to be the only way to get totally objective results.

[Cold Warrior]

Could you set up multiple Crossover bottles?