Page 1 of 3 Internet Explorer 7 (IE), released in October 2006, greatly improves its CSS rendering capabilities. However, it's only available for Windows XP and Vista, so we still have to support IE 6 — and possibly IE 5.5 and 5.0, depending on your site's audience — for some time to come. Unfortunately, the integration of IE into the Windows operating system, and Microsoft's refusal to allow multiple versions of it to run at the same time, have made testing web sites in various versions of this prevalent browser difficult. There are, however, ways it can be done, and the advent of IE 7 has brought some new methods out for our consideration. In this article I'll provide an overview of the current options available for testing multiple versions of Windows IE, and provide the pros and cons of each method so you can decide which suits you best.
The Microsoft-sanctioned way of testing multiple versions of IE is to install their software program Microsoft Virtual PC, which was previously commercial but is now free. The Microsoft web site does a good job of summing up what Virtual PC is:
"Virtual PC 2004 lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop, each of which virtualizes the hardware of a complete physical computer. ... With Virtual PC, customers can install any number of operating systems in virtual machines."
With Virtual PC, you could set up multiple operating systems on multiple virtual computers, and each virtual computer could have its own version of IE set up on it. This would perfectly mirror how a physically separate machine would render your web site in each version of IE. It also allows you to customize each browser, such as installing the Flash player plugin in some of them (but not in others), to give you a broader range of user setup scenarios to test.
But there's a catch: you have to have a separate license of Windows for each virtual machine that you create. You cannot simply install your computer's copy of Windows XP in each virtual machine over and over again. If you want three virtual computers running Windows XP, you need four licenses for XP: one for your own computer and three for the virtual ones. For many people, this expense would be a deal-breaker. If you work at a large organization, however, you may have no trouble obtaining extra licenses to install onto virtual machines. You may also consider looking for and buying older used versions of Windows, such as Windows 2000, to install in Virtual PC.
Another disadvantage of Virtual PC is that you cannot access the browsers installed in virtual machines from Dreamweaver's Preview in Browser command. If you preview your work in the top browsers every couple of minutes while developing a page, as I do, this can be a deal-breaker as well.
Finally, running multiple operating systems in one computer can be very resource-intensive. Your computer will need enough power and memory to be able to handle the load.
Microsoft Virtual PC is not the only virtualization software out there. You can also try VMWare's free VMWare Player and VMWare Server software. Both work essentially the same way as Virtual PC and come with the same pros and cons.
VNC is similar to virtual machines, except that with VNC, the machines aren't virtual. With VNC, you have physically separate computers, each with their own operating system and browser, that you can control from your main computer. To use VNC, you need to install the VNC server on each computer you want the ability to control remotely, as well as VNC viewer application on the controlling application. RealVNC and its predecessor TightVNC both offer good, free software to do this.
This method shares the advantage of Virtual PC in that you get a true view of what a user with the same setup will see. However, VNC is much less resource intensive than Virtual PC or other virtualization programs, so if you don't have a powerhouse computer, this might be a better option than installing all those virtual machines on one box.
You'll still need additional operating system licenses of course, one for each machine you control remotely. However, if you are working in a group of people that all need to test multiple versions of IE, you can have them all work off the same set of remote machines instead of having to install the same virtual machines on each of their computers. So, if you and your teammate both need access to three machines, you only need three operating system licenses for those three remote machines, not six licenses for your three virtual machines and your teammate's three virtual machines.
Needing less operating system licenses could mean less expense for you, but the machines themselves have to be paid for, not to mention stored somewhere. The cost and space requirements of housing several boxes for testing might not fit your situation.
Keywords
browser testing, browsers, Internet Explorer, IE 7, multiple, tools, virtual machines, VNC, standalones
