Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Mac
Through Parallels, Mac users can run Windows programs. Regardless of what operating system you run, as a web developer you should never ignore Internet Explorer. There are still plenty of people using the browsers because it still runs natively in Windows.
The best way I found to get IE6 and IE7 on my Mac was to use parallels and upgrade to Windows to IE7, then install MultiIE to get IE6 running. Take a look at this screenshot to see it in action:
It looks kind of strange to see a windows taskbar on a Mac, but hey – now I have both IE6 and IE7 running great on my Mac to fulfill my web development needs.
10 comments
Hi Marc
I use IE7 and IE8 portable on Windows, as an alternative to the multiIE that doesn’t work that well.
I’m not sure they work on Mac as well, just mentioning :)
I don’t have a direct download link but they are available out there.
Cheers
While it’s buggy and slow, IETester looks promising. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and it provides IE 5.5, 6, 7, 8b1 all in one place without hacks. It also crashes a lot on exit and takes some patience when opening new windows.
I’m always a little terrified that MultiIE or any other solution like that isn’t accurately showing me how things would work on a native IE install. That’s why I use multiple virtual machines on VMWare Fusion or Parallels. That way I can have once copy of XP with IE6, one copy with IE7 and one copy with IE8. They’re all just copies of the same VM, but with each one upgraded a further level.
That is a great idea, Brian!
However, I have not seen any rendering discrepancies between the MultiIE IE6 and standalone IE6. I’ve used MultiIE in many crazy situations and it has always rendered exactly the same as the standalone version. Although I have overheard people saying that it renders different, but I haven’t experienced it myself. The moment that I do experience a rendering difference, I’ll be giving your method a shot. Thanks again for your great comment!
I always ran into problems when using MultiIE and like Brian found the best solution to be having multiple VMs. Solving bugs in IE is fun enough without having to worry about how having IE6 and IE7 on the same machine is going to affect the results.
I have found that conditional statements don’t work with the multi IE setup. It just seems to default to the latest version – in my case IE7. Anyone else had that problem?
I’ve been using IES4OSX until now but noticed that it’s not quite what a “normal” windows computer running IE6 would render. And now I have this client who absolutely insists on pleasing is <10% of IE6 users which forces me to either drive my scooter around town to visit friends with various computer systems or shell out a few bucks to get parallels.
Currently running the demo, it looks really good.
But, I want to test IE6, IE7 and IE8, which sounds to me like using 3 different VMs with about 2Gb each, ruining about 6Gb of my precious MBP.
Any ideas on how to tone down the windows install to just the bare minimum?
And yes, it is a weird sight, that PC start-bar on the purdy mac :)
very good article. thank you
very nice article. thank you for sharing.
Thank you for the information you have written