Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Mac: IE, Mac

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Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Mac

Tags: IE, Mac | Written on 30/6/08

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.

Comments

#1. Ariel Flesler on 30/6/08
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
#2. Sunny Walker on 1/7/08
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.
#3. Brian Dillard on 2/7/08
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.
#4. Marc Grabanski on 2/7/08
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!
#5. Jesse McPherson on 3/7/08
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.
#6. robotoverlord on 14/7/08
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?

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