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Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

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Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#41

Post by sjs »

fierarul wrote: post #23
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get the VMs to pass WGA so they are only good for 30 days before they have to be reset; which pretty much makes them only good for testing / qa purposes. This seems like a very reasonable decision on Microsoft's part: they make it easier / legal / quick to test on their platform and more people will support and develop on it.

I dunno, it could be useful for a number of things. For example, I know a few online banking solutions that are IE-only. The most you need there might be a certificate, so resetting the vm every 30 days isn't such a big deal. I try to keep the VMs as small as possible anyhow and if you need data, you keep it in a VM shared folder that you map in the Windows guest.

Don't worry I'm sure some bean counter crunched the numbers and they decided it was an acceptable risk.

I mean, if you want a fully functional pirated version that doesn't expire every 30 days and you never have to activate you don't exactly have to look very hard, or far.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#42

Post by thristian »

I have, on occasion, wanted to write almost exactly this script - but the thing that stopped me was that VirtualPC apparently emulates a slightly different IDE controller than VirtualBox, and so when Windows XP starts up in the new VM, it doesn't have a driver installed for the IDE controller, can't find its own hard-drive, and blue-screens. It's possible to edit the registry to install the required driver, but that requires booting into Windows... a Catch-22 if ever there was one.

I was eager to see how the problem had been solved... but apparently Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't have that particular problem, and the IE6 VM (with Windows XP) just says "IE6 support is currently disabled".

That's kind of sad; at least for the light web-development I've done, IE7 and IE8 aren't nearly as fussy and hair-pulling as IE6.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#43

Post by ck2 »

Why not use IEtester and run all versions of IE on a vista/w7 free vmware player install?

W7 trial iso will work without a key, it will just shutdown every 30 minutes which is fine for testing purposes.

IEtester also has debugbar which sometimes is even better than some firefox tools I use.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#44

Post by xdissent »

pygy_ wrote: post #38

A small meta-comment: xdissent[1], the author of this package, is a HN user, but he has negative karma because his fourth comment was snarky and got heavily downvoted. Even though he's aware of the ban he clings to this handle and continues to post messages seen by almost no one (he posted twice on this comment page [2,3]). The rest of the messages eversince the incident have been fine (enable "showdead" in the user…

pygy_ you are my hero. I'm speechless in a different sense than earlier today. Thank you and everyone who up voted me and thanks for reaffirming that karma works.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#45

Post by xdissent »

thristian wrote: post #42

I have, on occasion, wanted to write almost exactly this script - but the thing that stopped me was that VirtualPC apparently emulates a slightly different IDE controller than VirtualBox, and so when Windows XP starts up in the new VM, it doesn't have a driver installed for the IDE controller, can't find its own hard-drive, and blue-screens. It's possible to edit the registry to install the required driver, but that…

The IE6 VM from MS runs XP, which doesn't natively include drivers for any of the VirtualBox network adapters. That means ievms wouldn't really be of much great utility unless it could install one of those drivers for you. Unfortunately licensing restrictions prevent me from including the drivers (or even an OS to boot and install them). I'm still looking for a solution and will update the docs if I can figure it out.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#46

Post by fierarul »

rdl wrote: post #25
fierarul wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magic in ChromeOS is the hardware Google uses from the Chromebooks. There is an unofficial site with images for Chromium(?)OS but it doesn't look pretty.

What is the magic beyond SSD (and good acpi/power management integration), trusted boot (using a TPM), and OpenGL?

Beyond that I hope they have some better fonts on the Chromebooks.

I can't imagine what would one do with a ChromeOS VM when you have native Chrome builds available. Once the novelty factor wears out (and it does, pretty quickly), there is nothing to be done except delete the vm.

Otoh, I see the value in a secure device like the Chromebook and I think this is what ChromeOS is selling, not just the actual OS.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#48

Post by idrinkmusic »

ck2 wrote: post #43

Why not use IEtester and run all versions of IE on a vista/w7 free vmware player install? W7 trial iso will work without a key, it will just shutdown every 30 minutes which is fine for testing purposes. IEtester also has debugbar which sometimes is even better than some firefox tools I use.

As far as I'm concerned, IE Tester doesn't have an exact copy of IE's code, hence not 100% reliable.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#49

Post by jarofgreen »

ck2 wrote: post #43

Why not use IEtester and run all versions of IE on a vista/w7 free vmware player install? W7 trial iso will work without a key, it will just shutdown every 30 minutes which is fine for testing purposes. IEtester also has debugbar which sometimes is even better than some firefox tools I use.

I've found IEtester to be really keen to cache code, to the point of having to clear cache's in settings sometimes - clearly not great for development.

Re: Automate download, install, config of IE-only VM's with VirtualBox (Linux/OSX)

#50

Post by jarofgreen »

idrinkmusic wrote: post #48
ck2 wrote: post #43

Why not use IEtester and run all versions of IE on a vista/w7 free vmware player install? W7 trial iso will work without a key, it will just shutdown every 30 minutes which is fine for testing purposes. IEtester also has debugbar which sometimes is even better than some firefox tools I use.

As far as I'm concerned, IE Tester doesn't have an exact copy of IE's code, hence not 100% reliable.

+1 IETester better than nothing and a decent fallback, but running the actual IE's better than IETEster.
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