Sunday, 17 February 2008

Installing Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer for testing

There are a few different ways to get multiple versions of IE running on the same machine (e.g. IE 6 and 7 running together to test IE Compatibility):
  1. Hack the registry (e.g. http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/multiIE.html)
  2. Run a VPC Image for testing purposes (you can obtain some of these test VPCs from the Microsoft IE Compatibility VHD dowload site at http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en)
  3. Testing on your build & test machine via terminal services (mstsc)

I didn't like the idea of a 500MB VPC on my HDD just for testing. This makes it more difficult and painful to test my application regularly. Instead, I have found that the simplest approach is to use the following install package:

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

This setup package uses a feature found in Windows 2000 and above called DLL redirection. Just select the versions you want and test away. No mess, no fuss.

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