Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

modern.ie

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#11

Post by pling »

gaelow wrote: post #8
benburton wrote: post #3

For even more convenience, use this script that automatically installs specific versions of IE VMs from the command line: https://github.com/xdissent/ievms

For even more convenience I don't test for IE compliance. I test for ECMA and W3C standards compliance and don't write any vendor specific code.

That means your stuff probably doesn't work on IE properly.

Not joking (and I know this sucks) but there are a shit ton of IE users out there still and I'm not willing to hang our product for convenience.

Vendor specific code is a reality we're going to have to live with for a long time yet.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#12

Post by pling »

lanekelly wrote: post #5

Considering this, what are the odds of MS ever shipping IE clients for OSX and Linux?

Medium for OSX. Unlikely for Linux - they'd be laughed out of the building.

They shipped IE5 for Unix a long while back believe it or not!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_UNIX

I actually tripped over a solitary installation of it about 5 years ago as well!

As for IE for Mac - that was around forever ago.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#13

Post by matthewmacleod »

gaelow wrote: post #8
benburton wrote: post #3

For even more convenience, use this script that automatically installs specific versions of IE VMs from the command line: https://github.com/xdissent/ievms

For even more convenience I don't test for IE compliance. I test for ECMA and W3C standards compliance and don't write any vendor specific code.

I appreciate what you're trying to say there, but in practice most developers can't adopt this solution. Unless you're writing for known platforms (an internal web app, say) or building a throwaway demo, you will practically speaking have to compromise and support vendor-specific code where it's required by your users.

The goal of most real-world software is to deliver a working, usable product – not to produce lots of standards-compliant code.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#14

Post by matthewmacleod »

0x0 wrote: post #9
raddevon wrote: post #7

I notice on the page they have licensing that supersedes the Windows licensing included with the VMs. Unfortunately, I've had these VMs for a while, and they've been complaining for activation. So, although they have provided different licensing terms, they didn't bother to inform the software of this fact.

I've found that booting the virtualbox VMs and then snapshotting them in a running state is pretty convenient. Restore to snapshot on every use, and you'll get at least an hour out of each session, resetting every time. Also the startup time is near instant.

The ievms installer (https://github.com/xdissent/ievms) automatically takes a clean snapshot on install, which allows you to restore to a blank "just installed" state, resetting the licensing timer in the process.

Still frustrating, but work-arounds are there if needed.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#15

Post by levosmetalo »

pling wrote: post #10
raddevon wrote: post #7

I notice on the page they have licensing that supersedes the Windows licensing included with the VMs. Unfortunately, I've had these VMs for a while, and they've been complaining for activation. So, although they have provided different licensing terms, they didn't bother to inform the software of this fact.

This is damn annoying. We downloaded a whole set of them and after a bit they all died so you have to download them again periodically. Not a viable solution. In the end we just set up an activated VM (using MSDN licenses) with RDP enabled for each config on a Win 8.1 HyperV machine that sits in the corner of the office.

I consider IE testing and support as an extra feature in all my projects, and am quite happy to bill an extra hour for setting waiting to download and setting up VMs.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#16

Post by niteskunk »

raddevon wrote: post #7

I notice on the page they have licensing that supersedes the Windows licensing included with the VMs. Unfortunately, I've had these VMs for a while, and they've been complaining for activation. So, although they have provided different licensing terms, they didn't bother to inform the software of this fact.

I usually snapshot the VM states before first boot, and restore to that when activation runs out (annoying, but beats re-downloading everything).

If I recall correctly, some of them even come with instructions for re-arming the activation timer, which can get you a bit more time out of them.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#17

Post by caaig »

How are the mighty fallen.

I take some comfort in that MS now feel the need need to explain how I might use wget. But, sorry, but if you really want me to test my site against your proprietary browser, you need to remove your ugly time limited license, otherwise my site says "use a standards complaint browser, and I don't care care about your proprietary crap any more".

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#18

Post by ics »

levosmetalo wrote: post #15
pling wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is damn annoying. We downloaded a whole set of them and after a bit they all died so you have to download them again periodically. Not a viable solution. In the end we just set up an activated VM (using MSDN licenses) with RDP enabled for each config on a Win 8.1 HyperV machine that sits in the corner of the office.

I consider IE testing and support as an extra feature in all my projects, and am quite happy to bill an extra hour for setting waiting to download and setting up VMs.

Agreed. Also, there's nothing stopping you from automating that re-download-install-launch and charging the hour for that.

Re: Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows

#20

Post by noir_lord »

dave1010uk wrote: post #19

Anyone know of a similar way to test Safari? AFAICT it now only runs on Mac OS X and Apple don't provide any VMs for testing.

You can run MacOSX in virtualbox if you the moon aligns for you (I've had some machines it worked ok and others I just couldn't get to work).
Post reply on HN