5 ms·

I'm not sure I'm getting the feel for this at all. It's almost as if it's targeted at reducing friction for people to test with internet explorer, but you need

by 13 12y ago

I'm not sure I'm getting the feel for this at all. It's almost as if it's targeted at reducing friction for people to test with internet explorer, but you need a Microsoft account to use it, you are limited to VNC speeds, and you need to expose a webserver to the internet with your test service on it. There's not many situations I can think of that this would be useful, especially if it's something finicky like scrolling performance that needs debugging. On the other hand, Microsoft offers a bunch of freely downloadable virtual machines with every version of Internet Explorer you could care to test in[1]. Why would anybody in the world want to use this particular product for testing over the alternative? [1]: https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads

quonn 12y ago
This probably targets people who would otherwise not test their website with IE, not those who do web development for a living. I like it.
pmontra 12y ago
Well, it saves time compared to having to download the VMs and keep them up to date. Nevertheless I'll keep downloading the VMs and do without a MS account and let them in into my exposed server. If the VMs call home I can disable their networking in VirtualBox.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
smacktoward 12y ago
Because the alternative (the downloadable VMs) is a gigantic, unbelievable pain in the ass. 1) You have to download a complete system image of a machine running the specific versions of Windows and IE you're interested in testing against. Each of these images can require downloading up to 4 DVDs worth of data just to get it bootstrapped, which can take forever even on a fast pipe. 2) Want to test against a different version of Windows, or IE, or both? Now you get to download 4 more DVDs, all over again! (Yep, if you started testing, say, IE9 on Windows 7, and now you want to test against IE10, you have to download a whole new virtual machine from scratch.) 3) For reasons known only to Microsoft, they don't distribute the VM images as unified packages; instead, they're a bunch of DVD-size RAR files that have to be assembled into a complete VM image after downloading. One of those RARs get corrupted en route? Back to downloading! 4) RAR files? In 2014? For serious? Yes, RAR files, for serious. 5) Now you've made it through the epic download, assembled your VM image, and are ready to get started. Hey, guess what! Microsoft is so paranoid about the chance that you're an Evil Pirate™ rather than a legitimate developer that they put a special surprise in the VM, just for you: when it reaches the end of the calendar quarter, the VM self-destructs. Yes, you read that right -- after all that, this VM that you marched through Hell to put together becomes useless after three months at most. So at that point, you get to do all the stuff listed above again. (Yes, I know there are hacks you can make in the registry to extend this time for an extra quarter or two. It's still insulting.) The whole process is such a pain that people have written tools like ievms (https://github.com/xdissent/ievms https://github.com/xdissent/ievms) just to automate the endless, tedious downloading-unpacking-installing-self-destructing-downloading-etc. cycle. And vendors like BrowserStack (http://www.browserstack.com/ http://www.browserstack.com/) make good money charging people to do the same thing they could conceivably do with the VMs, just because using the VMs hurts so much people will happily pay to avoid it. And the kicker: all of this nonsense, of course, is only necessary because you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side. And the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE. Microsoft management are considerably more enlightened these days than they were back then. But this huge, ugly, painful, completely unnecessary wart on the Windows development experience that they forced upon the world back then still persists, either because someone in Redmond thinks it's a good idea, or just out of sheer laziness.
- 13 12y ago
  The segmented downloads is a bit of a strange choice, granted. I thought it might have been to do with FAT32 but the decompressed file would be bigger than the 32bit limit anyway. The other stuff I don't really care about that much, for it's flaws it was still quite nice of the system to be supplied in the first place.
- yuhong 12y ago
  decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE. Not true.
  - jessaustin 12y ago
    Umm, you can't just say that. In your estimation, what was the reason for this frustrating decision?
    - cowabunga 12y ago
      COM is the reason.
      - yuhong 12y ago
        More precisely, the way it uses COM.
        jessaustin 12y ago
        API design is also a human decision-making process, vulnerable to commercial concerns and similar "evil" impulses. I believe that was even spelled out in the consent decree?
- acdha 12y ago
  You're making it sound a bit harder to download than it needs to be – they do provide a handy curl snippet to download all of the files in one batch – and you can keep unpacking the same download repeatedly since it's time-locked from when you start it. Otherwise, though, I completely agree that it's harder than it needs to be. The big problem you left out are the Windows updates – both because that new VM is going to be useless at first until it installs hundreds of updates (saving files is a 100% CPU for hours NP-hard problem in Microsoft-land) and because unless you specifically disable it Windows Update will automatically upgrade you to the latest version of IE. > the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE The actual goal was to win the browser wars by ensuring that every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer, knowing that many people would never pay for a copy of Netscape if they already had a browser. Creating dependencies around the OS was an attempt to avoid anti-bundling laws and, like many of the other decisions they made in the 90s, a bad idea the entire industry has spent billions coping with. I'm sure there's plenty of regret now as they have to deal with all of the enterprise customers who refuse to upgrade because they don't know what upgrading the system browser will break.
frankchn 12y ago
This also does not support localStorage, which makes testing some websites impossible.
Turing_Machine 12y ago
I usually just use an Amazon EC2 instance for Windows browser testing. I've got an essentially bare Win machine image (just the common browsers). I fire it up and then use Remote Desktop to connect to it. Works pretty well (other than, as you say, being limited to Remote Desktop/VNC-like speeds).
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  Another big advantage of doing this over using a local VM is that when you have to run the inevitable 12 terabyte software update (with six reboots) after not using it for a while, the updates download at Amazon data center speed, not your local connection speed. Just make sure to save the updated machine image afterward. :-)
- jrochkind1 12y ago
  If you have a copy of Windows (legally or one you are willing to use anyway), I find installing it on a VirtualBox VM more convenient (and entirely free) than Remote Desktop to an EC2. And faster. The alternatives discussed here are for when you don't have and don't want to pay for a Windows license, and are unwilling to break the law and pirate it as part of your job.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    I've found exactly the opposite. My (completely legal) copy of Windows decides that it's not legit every time I upgrade VirtualBox, and sometimes at random times in between. Each time I have to dig out the disk and go through the authentication BS. If I actually used it for anything other than occasional browser testing it might be worthwhile to jump through those hoops, but I don't. Not to mention that (since I only need it once in a great while) each time I use it I have to go through downloading a zillion megabytes of software updates and reboot multiple times. Also, I don't have to keep it around on my (always full) main drive or run it off a slow external drive. The two cents an hour cost for the AMI is well worth avoiding the hassle, for me. Your use case may well be different.
    - 12y ago

by 13 12y ago

quonn 12y ago

This probably targets people who would otherwise not test their website with IE, not those who do web development for a living. I like it.

pmontra 12y ago

Well, it saves time compared to having to download the VMs and keep them up to date. Nevertheless I'll keep downloading the VMs and do without a MS account and let them in into my exposed server. If the VMs call home I can disable their networking in VirtualBox.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

smacktoward 12y ago

Because the alternative (the downloadable VMs) is a gigantic, unbelievable pain in the ass. 1) You have to download a complete system image of a machine running the specific versions of Windows and IE you're interested in testing against. Each of these images can require downloading up to 4 DVDs worth of data just to get it bootstrapped, which can take forever even on a fast pipe. 2) Want to test against a different version of Windows, or IE, or both? Now you get to download 4 more DVDs, all over again! (Yep, if you started testing, say, IE9 on Windows 7, and now you want to test against IE10, you have to download a whole new virtual machine from scratch.) 3) For reasons known only to Microsoft, they don't distribute the VM images as unified packages; instead, they're a bunch of DVD-size RAR files that have to be assembled into a complete VM image after downloading. One of those RARs get corrupted en route? Back to downloading! 4) RAR files? In 2014? For serious? Yes, RAR files, for serious. 5) Now you've made it through the epic download, assembled your VM image, and are ready to get started. Hey, guess what! Microsoft is so paranoid about the chance that you're an Evil Pirate™ rather than a legitimate developer that they put a special surprise in the VM, just for you: when it reaches the end of the calendar quarter, the VM self-destructs. Yes, you read that right -- after all that, this VM that you marched through Hell to put together becomes useless after three months at most. So at that point, you get to do all the stuff listed above again. (Yes, I know there are hacks you can make in the registry to extend this time for an extra quarter or two. It's still insulting.) The whole process is such a pain that people have written tools like ievms (https://github.com/xdissent/ievms https://github.com/xdissent/ievms) just to automate the endless, tedious downloading-unpacking-installing-self-destructing-downloading-etc. cycle. And vendors like BrowserStack (http://www.browserstack.com/ http://www.browserstack.com/) make good money charging people to do the same thing they could conceivably do with the VMs, just because using the VMs hurts so much people will happily pay to avoid it. And the kicker: all of this nonsense, of course, is only necessary because you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side. And the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE. Microsoft management are considerably more enlightened these days than they were back then. But this huge, ugly, painful, completely unnecessary wart on the Windows development experience that they forced upon the world back then still persists, either because someone in Redmond thinks it's a good idea, or just out of sheer laziness.

13 12y ago
The segmented downloads is a bit of a strange choice, granted. I thought it might have been to do with FAT32 but the decompressed file would be bigger than the 32bit limit anyway. The other stuff I don't really care about that much, for it's flaws it was still quite nice of the system to be supplied in the first place.
yuhong 12y ago
decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE. Not true.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  Umm, you can't just say that. In your estimation, what was the reason for this frustrating decision?
  - cowabunga 12y ago
    COM is the reason.
    - yuhong 12y ago
      More precisely, the way it uses COM.
      - jessaustin 12y ago
        API design is also a human decision-making process, vulnerable to commercial concerns and similar "evil" impulses. I believe that was even spelled out in the consent decree?
acdha 12y ago
You're making it sound a bit harder to download than it needs to be – they do provide a handy curl snippet to download all of the files in one batch – and you can keep unpacking the same download repeatedly since it's time-locked from when you start it. Otherwise, though, I completely agree that it's harder than it needs to be. The big problem you left out are the Windows updates – both because that new VM is going to be useless at first until it installs hundreds of updates (saving files is a 100% CPU for hours NP-hard problem in Microsoft-land) and because unless you specifically disable it Windows Update will automatically upgrade you to the latest version of IE. > the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE The actual goal was to win the browser wars by ensuring that every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer, knowing that many people would never pay for a copy of Netscape if they already had a browser. Creating dependencies around the OS was an attempt to avoid anti-bundling laws and, like many of the other decisions they made in the 90s, a bad idea the entire industry has spent billions coping with. I'm sure there's plenty of regret now as they have to deal with all of the enterprise customers who refuse to upgrade because they don't know what upgrading the system browser will break.

frankchn 12y ago

This also does not support localStorage, which makes testing some websites impossible.

Turing_Machine 12y ago

I usually just use an Amazon EC2 instance for Windows browser testing. I've got an essentially bare Win machine image (just the common browsers). I fire it up and then use Remote Desktop to connect to it. Works pretty well (other than, as you say, being limited to Remote Desktop/VNC-like speeds).

Turing_Machine 12y ago
Another big advantage of doing this over using a local VM is that when you have to run the inevitable 12 terabyte software update (with six reboots) after not using it for a while, the updates download at Amazon data center speed, not your local connection speed. Just make sure to save the updated machine image afterward. :-)
jrochkind1 12y ago
If you have a copy of Windows (legally or one you are willing to use anyway), I find installing it on a VirtualBox VM more convenient (and entirely free) than Remote Desktop to an EC2. And faster. The alternatives discussed here are for when you don't have and don't want to pay for a Windows license, and are unwilling to break the law and pirate it as part of your job.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  I've found exactly the opposite. My (completely legal) copy of Windows decides that it's not legit every time I upgrade VirtualBox, and sometimes at random times in between. Each time I have to dig out the disk and go through the authentication BS. If I actually used it for anything other than occasional browser testing it might be worthwhile to jump through those hoops, but I don't. Not to mention that (since I only need it once in a great while) each time I use it I have to go through downloading a zillion megabytes of software updates and reboot multiple times. Also, I don't have to keep it around on my (always full) main drive or run it off a slow external drive. The two cents an hour cost for the AMI is well worth avoiding the hassle, for me. Your use case may well be different.
  - 12y ago