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Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

microsoft.com

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Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#41

Post by varenc »

adamnemecek wrote: post #8
etfb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Is there a similar option for VMWare, or is the format too different?

There 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).

If 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.

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#42

Post by mgeraci »

xdissent made a great command line installer on github for virtualbox and these virtual machines; you can get them running with one command. I've used the script for the last year or so when I've had to set up a new box for testing and I've really enjoyed it.

https://github.com/xdissent/ievms

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#43

Post by lotyrin »

Hawkee wrote: post #31
duck wrote: post #28

Or better yet, just use https://browserling.com/ which is from another HN member, pkrumins.

This is nice, but it suffers from the same flaw all the other virtual browser services suffer from: No pay by the minute/hour. I probably only need 1 or 2 hours with IE 8 every month or two.

Honestly, if it's not worth 20 bucks a month to you, you probably aren't in their target market (deliberately priced out of it, for good reason).

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#44

Post by ecaron »

Daegalus wrote: post #40

You don't need VMs or the sort to test old versions of IE. Open IE and hit F12, this will open IEs equivalent of Chrome Developer tools. It has options to change which IE engine it uses all the way back to IE7 for testing.

Which gets you close, but not close enough to say "I've testing in IEX." Although the DOM modelling is very close, the CSS and JS quirks between different versions aren't emulated enough in F12 to catch the problems that using the actual version would expose.

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#46

Post by eli »

lukeholder wrote: post #32
ecaron wrote: post #12

The biggest problem with these is that they all have an expiration date - and Microsoft frequently forgets to update them. And getting through to Microsoft to tell them it is out of date... forget about it.

The idea is to just rollback the VM snapshot to day 1 and move on. These are for testing websites in IE.

The XP image has a hard expiration date (currently just a few months from now: 2/14/13). I believe you would need to rollback to s snapshot and screw with the system date or the VM.

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#47

Post by duck »

Hawkee wrote: post #31
duck wrote: post #28

Or better yet, just use https://browserling.com/ which is from another HN member, pkrumins.

This is nice, but it suffers from the same flaw all the other virtual browser services suffer from: No pay by the minute/hour. I probably only need 1 or 2 hours with IE 8 every month or two.

It is going to cost you way more than $20 of your time to download/update/manage/run these VMs.

Re: Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE

#49

Post by ayuvar »

xdissent wrote: post #29
cheeaun wrote: post #7

Note that these images can still expire after 30 days (or 90 days with "rearm").

In Virtualbox you can take a snapshot of the VM after the initial install and revert to that snapshot to reset the trial period. ievms does this for you automatically.

Microsoft actually recommends doing so in the documentation for these images (except using Virtual PC, natch).
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