How to Test in IE 6 from a Mac (Or, How to Waste an Afternoon)
Posted on Thursday June 14th, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a TrackbackSo this has been one thing that has stumped me since I made the switch to Mac about 5 months ago. As a web developer it is important to test your websites in all the most common web browsers out there, and unfortunately for me the most common web browser right now is Internet Explorer 6. (If you’re using that browser right now please consider getting Firefox, or at least upgrading to Internet Explorer 7). As a rule I try to design for 95% of my target demographic, which means I don’t bother testing my site on user configurations that occur in less then 5% of the target demographic. I use the website w3counter as my source for internet user statistics. So when developing on a Mac, testing a website in Internet Explorer 6 (49.5% of all users) means walking back and forth between a friend or co-worker’s PC and stealing their computer for a few minutes. Fortunately there is a solution to this problem.
Your first option is to use a pay service such as browsercam which returns screen captures of a requested URL. A better option is to use the service browserpool which lets you start a remote desktop connection with a Mac, PC, or Linux computer that is loaded with multiple internet browsers, this service is free to try but you can be kicked out at any time if a paying customer requires a connection. I prefer browser pool because it offers a free trial service and it will allow you to check for cross-browser issues that can’t be captured in a screen shot, (Javascript errors, scrolling issues etc…).
Now as far as I can tell these are your only options. I originally started this blog post to instruct people on how to get IE 6 working on a Mac using Parallels. Obviously you can test IE 6 if you install XP using Parallels, but I wanted to install Vista and test IE 6. Windows has developed a free virtual machine called the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image that allows Vista users to access IE 6, but I received an error stating that the Virtual Machine was incompatible with my processor and that I required at least a Pentium II or equivalent processor to use the Virtual Machine. Seeing as I have a Core II Duo Mac Book Pro, I’m chalking this error up to the fact that I’m trying to run a Virtual Machine from inside a Virtual Machine. So back to the drawing board for me. Does anyone else have any solutions to this conundrum?
Update
Do a little snooping around www.tredosoft.com. They are working on an alpha release of ie6 for vista, you may have to contact them directly to get the link to the install file, as they have asked not to have it distributed as of yet. But it works very well for me on vista running in parallels 3
Blaise Alleyne Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 2:50 amHey man! Just came across this and I thought you might be interested in checking it out: IEs 4 Linux
It is supposedly a way to run IE with wine (I believe you can run wine on OS X?). Haven’t tried it out myself (yet), but it seems like it may be useful.
admin Says:
July 9th, 2007 at 10:24 amHey dude, that Is actually what I ended up doing! I haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet, but I ended up installing linux on another Virtual Machine, and then using IEs 4 Linux to test my websites. Works like a charm.
AD Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:50 pmHey mate,
Just came across your conundrum and completely agree with you as Im in the same situation. Although it seems like I have fewer ‘programming’ skills as I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to install ‘wine’ or use the other methods mentioned!!
I am also using a MacBook Pro (1 week old) with Leopard. I have recently switched from PC and this is the ONLY issue I have - testing web sites for my clients in IE6…
Is this Wine’ solution worth me checking out - even though I am not technically minded? (particularly as Im used to Windows, not OSX)…
All the best, AD.
Dan Imbrogno Says:
December 8th, 2007 at 4:19 pmHey there. If you have the money / hard disk space i’d recommend checking out parallels. It’s really the best / most hassle free way to do this. In addition you can set up windows with boot camp in leopard, which will let you boot into windows vista/ xp and get full 3d accelleration support for gaming etc. Apparantly the macbook pro is also one of the best vista laptops out there.
So thats my advice! If you can’t shell out the money or can’t get a copy of vista / xp then yeah check out wine. But it is going to be a little buggy and perhaps frustratingly slow when you’re trying to work out those annoying IE bugs.
Take care, let me know how it goes!
Todd Says:
January 27th, 2008 at 12:20 pmHow ’bout Crossover Mac? It allows you to install and run Windows programs with out Windows being installed. And it’s only about $70…seems like the best answer to me.
AD Says:
February 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pmCheers Dan, I will likely do Parallels - but my only issue really is the fact that I have so little hard drive space left (despite being 3 months old!!).. I have about 14GB of 250GB so I guess it’s still ok. I also heard about something called VMWare Fusion, too - any info/advice on this??
Many thanks,