Run IE6, IE7 and IE8 side by side
Today Internet Explorer 8 was released by Microsoft. This is of course great news for any frontend developer, but as always there is a downside to any new browser release – it’s one more browser you need to test your work in. Actually it’s more of a problem with Internet Explorer than any other browser – primarily because of Windows inability to have multiple versions of it installed at the same time.
Even though every other website is running a campaign to make people upgrade from IE6, most frontend developers know it can take at least a couple of months – or in worst case – till the end of 2009, before we’re able to completely justify not testing in IE6. Some customers might even continue to demand support for it for whatever reason.
Luckily, there’s a way you can have IE6, IE7 and IE8 installed at the same time (actually all versions of IE from version 3 up to 8, if that rocks your boat).
Screenshot of IE6, IE7 and IE8 running side by side
First of, I did this on an English version of Windows XP Pro SP3 – on a VMWare Fusion installation no less. I wasn’t able to make it work on Windows Vista or Windows 7, so your milage may vary.
(This is the order I installed stuff, although it might work in any order)
- Download Multiple IE Installer and install IE6
(and any pre-IE6 version you might like) - Download and install Internet Explorer 8
(This will replace your current default IE installation on Windows – mine was IE7) - Download and install Internet Explorer 7 Standalone Installer
(It must be the installer – it dosen’t work with the “Program only”-version)
And there you have it – IE6, IE7 and IE8 running side by side.
Enjoy your final days with IE6 
Update: There might be an issue with entering text in input-fields and selecting text in IE6 and IE7
March 19th, 2009 at 23:13
You could also use SuperPreview to test in.
March 20th, 2009 at 11:20
Didn’t know about SuperPreview, but I’ve tried IETester, but that didn’t work very well last time I tried…
March 20th, 2009 at 12:35
I just found about SuperPreview yesterday so I haven’t tried it yet, but as it’s from Microsoft I’m hoping it’ll work better than IETester.
March 31st, 2009 at 21:02
I tried this, and it changed my default browser to IE8 as mentioned in the instructions. But now, how do I run IE6?
April 1st, 2009 at 8:26
@Ken
If you downloaded and installed “Multiple IE Installer” (The first step in the tutorial) it should make a folder in your “Start Menu” under “All Programs” called “MultipleIEs”, where IE6 should be located.
April 2nd, 2009 at 20:26
[...] or “conditional comments“. The IE user experience happens when we have to run scary looking hacks, or — God help us — have a separate Windows machine, just to test different versions of [...]
April 4th, 2009 at 23:00
[...] aarfing.dk Publicado el Lun, 03/30/2009 – 00:57 [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 20:17
[...] Link: http://aarfing.dk/?p=120 [...]
April 27th, 2009 at 20:14
Any update on the text input issue in IE6 and IE7?
April 27th, 2009 at 21:19
No, it seems there’s a difference in how older IE’s and IE8 handles form-elements and text. This unfortunately is a system-change – maybe somewhere in the registry – and therefore requires Windows-skills beyond mine to fix.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:59
[...] Aarfing.dk has an excellent step by step instructions on how to run different IE versions them side by side [...]
June 25th, 2009 at 13:25
as long as there is windows xp…. ie6 browser still be in the browser check for css/xhtml encoder like me
August 5th, 2009 at 18:34
The best information i have found exactly here. Keep going Thank you
September 17th, 2009 at 17:16
I made a few times the experience that IE6 of Multiple IE does not in any case render CSS like the ‘original’ IE6. Now i have a own virtual machine for every IE running in Virtual Box.
September 17th, 2009 at 17:41
@David
Well, having seperate full installations of the different IE-version is of course the optimal solution, but this is meant to be an easy alternative for those who can’t bother to maintain three extra OS’ just because of a browser.
And by the way, I haven’t experienced any problems concerning CSS-rendering as you mention. Maybe if one uses some of those proprietary IE-filters or the like, one could get into trouble. Could you please point me to a page that renders differently in normal IE and in multiple IE?
September 18th, 2009 at 11:46
@aarfing
I wan’t using proprietary IE stuff, it was common CSS. I had it three times in the last two years, when i was working on an web project and checked it in different browsers, that the IE from the Multiple IE package was rendering different than the “original” IE 6.
I am sorry, but i haven’t written down the cases. I just checked some old project and at http://www.dil-ev.de you see in the Multiple IE 6 the boxes touching the left border. In the normal IE 6 the boxes are centered.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:06
@David
I’m sorry to hear you’ve had trouble using Multiple IE 6, but I’ve just tested the your URL in both Multiple IE 6 and a real IE 6 and found no difference (besides one them are using ClearType to render the font and the other aren’t). I still never have seen any difference between the two…
Se screenshots: Real IE6 and Multiple IE6.
September 18th, 2009 at 12:21
@aarfing
The left shifted boxes are only on the home site.
I had Multiple IE installed on four different machines. All are running under WinXP Prof. SP3. On every of this machines i checked the websites and saw that it was not rendered like in the original IE 6.
October 7th, 2009 at 17:04
Thanks
your instructions completely fucked up my PC – nice one.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:35
@Jack
Sorry mate, but the only program that gets installed on your PC is IE8, the other IE installs are just files that gets copied to new folders in your “Program files”-directory (no registry-changes or the like) and therefore they aren’t able to “fuck up” your computer, as you say… The only thing that could have gone wrong was the installation of IE8, which you’ll have a hard time blaming on me…
October 22nd, 2009 at 16:06
Hi aarfing,
Just a question..Does this mean there’s no need to install any VPCs on a computer? ‘Coz this will really help me a lot. VPCs are a bit much heavy and I really regret not having the right workstation for it.
The rest of the multi-browser solutions I’ve read required installing a VPC and then installing the browsers in there.
Thanks.
October 22nd, 2009 at 16:24
Jep, that’s exactly what it means – no virtual PC’s…
November 19th, 2009 at 22:25
After going through the steps as indicated, I could not get any Bookmarks to work on any IE browser. They were there, but clicking on them did nothing except in IE6…it opened the Print dialog.
Pat
March 20th, 2010 at 18:22
I don’t know if anybody mentioned that but there is one elegant way to run IE6, IE7 and IE8 on the same machine, called virtual PC.
First download virtual PC from Microsoft website here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=04d26402-3199-48a3-afa2-2dc0b40a73b6&displaylang=en
Then download 3 EXE files with IE6, IE7 and IE8 here:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en
Install them on your PC and test your web applications. Saved me days of looking for similar solutions.