4 different IE’s on one Windows 7??? Could you elaborate a bit more on how you do this?
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
You must have Windows 7 Professional or above to use it.
It basically lets you install a legitimate copy of Windows XP, without owning a license, in a virtual machine (vs. VirtualBox, where you must own your own copy of Windows XP to install it there).
You would create a couple virtual machines and just have a different copy of IE on each one.
Actually, you can use it in Home edition as well. The only difference is that Pro comes with an XP licence included. If you already have one, you can do the same on the home edition.
I lied cause I haven’t yet set it up with IE9, but this is IE6, IE7 and IE8 running at the same time, IE6 and IE7 in their own virtual machines, and IE8 running on W7.
Didn’t know that. Thanks. =p
I dislike “XP virtual mode” just because on my systems it’s an unstable wreck – but it’s based on Microsoft Virtual PC (hell, it IS microsoft Virtual PC) a program M$ has been crapping all over ever since they bought it up from Connectix. There’s a reason nobody uses the Mac version anymore and use VirtualBox or Parallels instead. Funny since a decade ago I was using Connectix Virtual PC on both PC and Mac to do the exact same thing – It’s just aged… poorly.
Especially on Win7… “Virtual PC” just gets buggier and buggier with every update – to the point you’d be better off using the old Connectix 2.2 release than the current one… The only good thing about it is it’s free if you have Pro+… If you already have a XP license around (dead laptops and P3’s dime a dozen) I wouldn’t bother with it – though it’s a good stopgap if you lack such things.
Though I also use VirtualBox to run two different linux installs, a copy of Haiku, and OSX 10.6 for testing as well… and a copy of 98 since IE6 98/ME and IE6 2K+ actually behave differently!
But then, I’m also the joker who’s using DosBox and it’s [url=http://jdosbox.sourceforge.net/]Java rewrite for cross-platform [url=http://www.cutcodedown.com/retroGames/pakuLive/]game development.… So I’m a bit out there in that department…
The ability to run any software of any age or OS platform at it’s full capacity is just plain cool.
Though that’s another advantage of using plain text editors, standalone FTP software and testing in the actual browsers (as well as command line compilers when applicable) – you end up on a platform or OS where you’re favorite pet development software isn’t available, you aren’t in the least bit slowed down…
Dreamweaver makes coding work easy.It is also very easy to use.
Oh. I didn’t realize you were still talking about virtualization. That solution is a bit resource-hungry for me.
Before you decide whether to support ie6 at all, you might want to take a look at Microsoft’s IE6 Countdown site. Currently it’s showing just 2% (yay!) in the USA and little more than that in the rest of the Western Hemisphere. So unless you’re building a site designed to be used by clients in China, India, or Saudi Arabia, I would just stick the Microsoft “upgrade your browser” or comparable warning on your pages and try to forget IE6 exists 
I generally use a message telling the user to upgrade the browser these days as well, but still need IE6 in order to test that!
I use IETester for basic IE6 and 7 checks, when I need to do them. It usually doesn’t crash for at least a couple of minutes 
I find IETester doesn’t properly recreate the versions, and as you say, is buggy as hell! Gave up on that one a long time ago.
This was all set up a couple of years ago as well, when I actually cared about IE6!
Hi LauraFig and welcome to the big wide world of hand-made web pages… Now that HTML5 is here (here’s the shiv to make IE pay attention: https://code.google.com/p/html5shiv/), we can come out from behind our WYSIWYG editors and fire up Notepad++ or whichever you prefer and code straight into the browser. What a relief. From the pared down !doctype to the specific tags, it makes page layout fun again. And CSS, well there’s a whole nother swingin’ monkey… I got bit two year ago and I’ll never look back… I now understand why ‘Code is Poetry’ is pasted up all over the web - it truly is! And trust me, I wasn’t even a geek ') I was a cabinet-maker for 18 years 'til I broke my back and discovered my inner geek! What fun it is. One day the web will be what what it’s supposed to be… fast and light. Sleek if you will. WYSIWYG bogs the code down and pulls the whole thing back into the '90’s… And what a bummer they were. CSS is fairly easy to learn, but it’ll take you a lifetime to master, which is okay by me, coz I’m having so much fun doing it. I’m going for a ride on my bicycle now. Enjoy ')
Welcome to our happy little forums, Galen777.
Off Topic:
Thanks, I’ve been a fan of sitepoint’s SitePoint CSS Reference stuff for a while now. Good, clean and clear. The way she suppose to is. One question; is there a Firefox add-on that can make like a text-only browser and just show text the way Readable does (but not overlayed like Readable)? I get tired of paying to see some dumb shmucks bad design all the time… ')
Off Topic:
That’s a good question I’m not sure. You should go ahead and start a new thread about that and I’m sure you’ll find your answer.
Quite right, don’t know what came over me. Dreamwove…
Off Topic:
Just use Opera… check out the “view” menu.
View -> style -> user mode strips all CSS from the page.
Under style there are a bunch of stylesheet overrides that try to turn the page into accessible by font size, color sets, etc, etc… there’s like 20 different style overrides you can apply… and some ones that are useful for web development like “outline”, “block structure”, “class and ID”, etc, etc…
Much of that functionality can also be added to FF via the Web Developer Toolbar… has a nice “disable” menu option.
Sorry, I know this is off-topic, but thanks. Tried it with this: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/20-3 and it worked fairly well. I see there’s a way of putting your own style sheet in as well… looks promising… I use WebDev toolbar in FF, but find that neither that, nor AdBlock, nor NoScript are fully page by page customisable… I know I’m fussy but if someone put their mind to a nice little (fully customisable) FF add-on with a few easily reachable select buttons on the add-on bar (imgs on/off etc.), I’d punt it to the whole wide world. Go Johnnie Marbles.
I guess I’m more aware of it because one of my clients has IE6 on her PC, while the machine I work on when I’m there has IE7. It makes me realize IT departments can be slow and inconsistent with upgrades.
I’m still considering my options for previewing in PC browsers on the Mac and found an app called Crossover. Has anyone tried it? All I’d use it for is browser testing.
Laura