Run Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer (IE)
patrick — Thu, 2006-05-11 13:21
One of the biggest issues for web designers is having to deal with multiple browsers, the worste of course being IE. One of the biggest problems with IE is the fact that there are lots of people still using the version that came with their computer & they've never bothered to upgrade! This could mean that some people are running IE 3, but I think the percentage of people actually using IE 3 is not worth worrying about.
Most standards based designers would prefer to be able to toss IE requirements out the window. Unfortunately IE still holds a major share & so most projects require IE compatibility of some sort. Be glad if your requirements only require IE6 (or better yet IE7 or IE8).
Considering past projects I've worked on & reading about projects others have worked on I've come to the conclusion that there's 5 "versions" of IE that designers can lump stuff into - pre 5.01, 5.01, 5.5, 6, & 7 (currently only beta is available). Most people don't even bother with pre 5.01 except to make sure that it's readable (a text browser should work just fine). Trying to test a website with multiple versions of IE causes problems because windows only lets you install 1 version. Before somebody figured out how to install multiple versions on the same computer you had to have multiple physical computers - each with it's own different version of IE installed (or a multi-boot system with different versions of windows installed.. rebooting to see what each browser looked like).
I don't remember where I found the original article on how to set these up, but I did find the nicely packaged zip files at browsers.evolt.org which has an archive of lots of different browsers & different versions of those browsers.
The file attachments are for IE 5.01, 5.5, & 6. These work on the NT versions of windows (i.e. not on '95, '98, & ME. may or may not work on the "home" version of later win systems). DO NOT use the IE 6 one if you already have IE6 installed, only use it if you currently have IE7 (beta or better [or worse?]) installed.
