9 ms·
The VMs are designed for Virtual PC, which is of course only available for Windows. There's a script called ievms that will automatically downloade those VMs a
by thristian 14y ago
The VMs are designed for Virtual PC, which is of course only available for Windows.
There's a script called ievms that will automatically downloade those VMs and convert them for use with VirtualBox on OS X or Linux:
http://xdissent.github.com/ievms/ http://xdissent.github.com/ievms/
- etfb 14y agoInteresting. Is there a similar option for VMWare, or is the format too different?
- adamnemecek 14y agoThere are utilities to convert a VirtualBox VM to VMware, if you are feeling adventurous :-). From my experience though, it's kinda painful (I forget what the issues were but I remember regretting the decision to convert the VM).
- varenc 14y agoIf you're on a Mac and have VMWare fusion its actually really easy. Just use VMWare to import the VHD files and it works fine. No need to use other utilities.
- Hawkee 14y agoMight as well just install VirtualBox, its free afterall. I stopped using VMWare when I had to buy it again for Lion.
- acdha 14y agoVMWare Fusion's importer works perfectly - in the past there used to be a concern with drivers but at least by VMware 4 it just works. Procedure: 1. Download 2. Use unrar or http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html to unpack the segments 3. Open VMWare Fusion & choose import 4. Get coffee & wait for disk I/O 5. Install VMWare tools & pending Windows Updates 6. Take a snapshot so you can reset it after the timelimit sets in (as noted by Microsoft, they disallow storing data durably for more than 90 days)
- ra 14y agoYes it's just such a pity that the virtual pc images are so massive.
- evoxed 14y agoI've been using these for the past few months and they've worked fine. Plenty of things I wish worked better, but for the most part I'm happy that it's free and I don't have to reboot just to debug some CSS.
- Hawkee 14y agoievms is not even necessary. This article explains how to do it with VirtualBox, http://samvermette.com/256 http://samvermette.com/256
- xdissent 14y agoievms was written for convenience, not out of necessity.
- polyvisual 14y agoievms is brilliant. It's made my life much easier, thanks.
- jongalloway2 14y agoYou can open VHD's in VirtualBox without any conversion.
- j_s 14y agoVirtual PC isn't supported in Windows 8 and I couldn't get these images working in Hyper-V. They are truly almost an afterthought from Microsoft.
- GauntletWizard 14y agoSelling an operating system is an afterthought in Microsoft's attempts to get you to give them money. If only our other incompatibility woes were so blessed with such afterthoughts.
- adrr 14y agoDoesn't IE10 let you run the past versions of IE with developer mode? Haven't tried with IE10 but i know IE9 had it.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoNo, that's compatibility mode. It isn't the actual browser.
- axefrog 14y agoCompatibility mode isn't what he's talking about. In the developer tools, there's also "browser mode", which allows you to select a different user agent, and "document mode", which allows you to select a rendering engine from IE7 onwards.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoI know about them. They aren't actually the browsers in question, though. It's IE9/10 engine with some stuff disabled.
- jlebrech 14y agothe sad truth is; anything below ie7 should be dropped. Unless you are developing for a corporation that won't move away from ie6 and then you should only test on ie6.
- cypherpunks01 14y agoThis is the most sane part of all IE testing I've done. Love it.
- laumars 14y agoThanks for that. I was a little baffled why MS would make this images only run on Windows when the people most likely to need to emulate other versions of IE / Windows would be non-Windows users.
- michaelt 14y agoPresumably it's useful for web developers on Windows 7 or above, but who need to test on IE6/7. As to why they'd use their own VM in preference to VirtualBox I don't know. But to be fair, Microsoft isn't the only company that neglects developers who aren't on their platform; "not invented here" syndrome seems to impact all software companies eventually!
- acdha 14y agoI suspect it's more useful for their big customers who need to test multiple versions – IE's most dedicated users are in the enterprise space, where Windows XP is still a major desktop platform.
- xyzzyb 14y agoBig thumbs up here for ievms. I use it all the time and I not so humbly was the first person to donate money to the project. I can't believe that it's only raised $400 so far. It's completely excellent and I know lots of people out there depend on it.