
Free Official MSIE VM's for Linux and Mac - JunkDNA
http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads
======
JunkDNA
For a long time I was critical of MS for forcing developers to use their
VirtualPC VM's because it just wasn't realistic: people use VMWare and
VirtualBox as well as Macs and Linux. It was always an example of MS's
frequent "plays poorly with others" behavior. Kudos to them for making it
right.

~~~
sljd
What do you mean by "forcing"? I'm running Windows XP on VirtualBox without
any problems.

~~~
JunkDNA
If you wanted to legally run multiple versions of IE without having to have
multiple Windows licenses for every combination (e.g. IE8/XP, IE8/Win7, IE10
Win7, IE10 Win8, etc...) you had to use the MS-provided virtual machines.
However, these were only ever made available as VirtualPC images. So there was
no way to run them, even on Windows, without all sorts of machinations (some
of which may have violated the ToS).

~~~
rednukleus
I was always impressed that Microsoft let you use Windows in a virtual machine
on another platform at all (not all their competitors do). But then I realised
that it made business sense for them.

~~~
runjake
Which competitors don't? The only competitor that comes to mind is Apple and
they don't block this either -- though I believe they were the last holdout.
Nor does Google, in any capacity, with Android or ChromeOS.

Edit: I am _dead wrong_. Apple only permits the virtualization of OS X on
Apple hardware, per the EULA. It does not permit the virtualization of OS X on
non-Apple hardware.

[http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1082.pdf](http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX1082.pdf)

~~~
rednukleus
You still can't run OS X on non-Apple hardware can you? I'd love it if they
changed that.

~~~
fowlerje
Sure you can. They have 10.8 VMs for VMWare Workstation. I'd recommend at
least 8gb of RAM for smoother access though.

~~~
ja27
"They" being someone that posted an image on bittorrent? Apple doesn't license
OS X for VMWare anywhere except Apple hardware. You can't even run a 10.8
guest on a 10.7 host per their license, which is really annoying.

~~~
scraplab
VMWare ESXi (and Fusion too, I expect) runs legitimate installations, with no
hacks required, as long as it's on Apple hardware. You need the InstallESD.img
file from the OS installer.

------
Tmmrn

      LinuxVirtualBox.part1.sfx
      LinuxVirtualBox.part2.rar
      LinuxVirtualBox.part3.rar
      LinuxVirtualBox.part4.rar
      LinuxVirtualBox.part5.rar
    

Why? Why the proprietary rar format? I mean, is there any reason to actually
use rar over even "only" xz nowadays or for big downloads, zpaq (lrzip is
probably not mainstream enough I guess)? And 1000 megabyte parts? Why?

~~~
blahpro
Although they come from Microsoft, I don't feel enormously comfortable doing
this:

    
    
        chmod +x LinuxVirtualBox.part1.sfx; ./LinuxVirtualBox.part1.sfx

~~~
xradionut
I was assuming the built-in NSA access was making people uncomfortable. ;)

~~~
trust-me
Naah, only good people get to rise to the top of the US politics. They would
never abuse your data.

------
dave1010uk
OK, now I've got a pretty solid IE test setup, how do I go about testing Mac
browsers (eg Safari) without a Mac? AFAIK the Mac OS X license says it can't
be virtualized under non-Mac hardware. It looks like the only options are to
use remote testing services, buy Apple hardware or illegally use Mac on a non-
Mac host.

~~~
guiambros
[http://browserstack.com](http://browserstack.com) ?

I'm not affiliated with them or anything. Just started using last weekend and
liked it a lot.

~~~
dave1010uk
I use browserstack a fair bit already (and have used saucelabs in he past).
These remote testing services are really great and cover 80% of my testing
needs. However what they don't do is let you get a true feel for what it's
like for an end user to interact with the site due to the latency. This
becomes more apparent with interactive web apps.

------
inthewind
Classic example of UX nightmare: So I follow the link, I see a button that
says get free VMS. I click it. I then can't figure out what I'm meant to do. I
stare at some weird quickstart offer. I give up. I come back to HN, and think
- how come others have managed to download their images. I go back, I realise
that the button just activates a dropdown/rollup (and it's already in the
dropdown state, so clicking the button rolls it up!), and then finally I get
to the VM images. To be honest, It would be easier to just have an apache
directory index, with folders and a load of accompanying checksums. I got
there in the end.

The other thing that I failed to notice, was that this was actually a
Microsoft site! Why not hang off of their domain name? How am I supposed to
know this is official?

~~~
wcdolphin
While I see your opinion, I think it is largely confused. That button you
pressed is greyed out, as it has already been pressed.

Actually, part of the issue is that the original poster provided a deep link
into the site, which maintained the user's state, viewing the download flow.

The big blue button asking you to "Select desired testing OS" was not obvious?

~~~
marshray
Took me a second to understand what the two blue dropdowns were for.

To me the "desired [for] testing OS" would refer to the guest OS running IE.
"Select host OS" would have made a lot more sense to me.

Or just list the 9 options as links on the page and let me click them like any
normal web content.

~~~
inthewind
Does it say that? It reads 'Select Desired Testing OS', which is an odd
phrase. It could read 'Select desired testing (host) OS'. But may aswell just
read 'Select host OS', as you suggest. Seems to be a classic case of Microsoft
changing terminology, and just confusing everyone further down the line in the
process.

You could spell out what a host OS is on a descriptive help text next to the
form control.

Also noticed that there's no VMWare option under Linux - why would that be?

Plus the blue font isn't really dark enough to read.

Great to see some md5s though!

Another niggle, which I totally missed the first time is that if you select
the wrong option navigate away from the page. And then use the back button -
you are back to square one. Which is a good reason why this type of download
page just doesn't really work.

~~~
marshray
Disclosure: I work at MSFT, though not on this.

> It reads 'Select Desired Testing OS', which is an odd phrase.

Right. I read that with the implied [for]. Even still, it's odd.

My workflow is: I already have a _host_ OS. I _desire_ to download a VM image
running an _OS on which_ to _test_ my site in IE.

> Seems to be a classic case of Microsoft changing terminology, and just
> confusing everyone further down the line in the process.

I can't imagine there's any malintent here. Just some website editing by folks
who are not immersed in the cross-platform virtualization terminology.

> You could spell out what a host OS is on a descriptive help text next to the
> form control.

Anyone doing virtualization ought to know what 'host' and 'guest' mean. Just
use the standard terms, overexplaining it just confuses it. But that's just my
own bias.

> Also noticed that there's no VMWare option under Linux - why would that be?

Probably they just didn't get around to testing that case specifically. The
VMware images for other host OSes might work just fine.

> Great to see some md5s though!

Death to MD5! :-) SHA-2-256 FTW. Better yet, GPG and/or Authenticode sigs.

> Another niggle, which I totally missed the first time is that if you select
> the wrong option navigate away from the page. And then use the back button -
> you are back to square one. Which is a good reason why this type of download
> page just doesn't really work.

Flippin' gratuitous Javascript. :-)

~~~
inthewind
Cheers for the response.

I should have said 'Great to see some checksums!'.

(I looked high and low for checksums for my Windows 8 download, and what I did
find didn't match what I had. Gives you a little piece of mind after a 7hour
download, and a crashed OS!)

~~~
marshray
Definitely.

------
crazygringo
This is great -- it's about time they made these available for VirtualBox etc
too, and on a proper, user-friendly page. (Previously they were just for
VirtualPC, and required a bit of tricky configuration to get working in
VirtualBox at least.)

------
ytjohn
I've actually been using the Windows 7 / IE9 version of this for a while.
There is a nice simple install w/snapshot that I utilized on both my Ubuntu
machine and my Mac. It takes a snapshot before powering the machine so once
your 90 days is up, you can just roll the snapshot back.

[https://github.com/xdissent/ievms](https://github.com/xdissent/ievms)

Edit: I mainly use IE to interact with work's IE-only CRM/ticket system.

~~~
jsingleton
Dynamics CRM? If so don't install IE10 as they don't play nice.

~~~
ytjohn
BMC Service Desk. I also worked for a company that used Siebel. With Siebel, I
could actually get that to work with IE6 under Wine, but it would peg one of
the CPU cores at 100%.

------
vizzah
Do they expire? Previousy IE VMs from Microsoft were only valid for ~90 days
or something and required re-downloading (and then re-configuring all settings
which was pita).

~~~
trust-me
And often MS people would forget to upload updated VM.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
The great irony is I ended up hacking legal VMs. At least they're better about
it now.

------
Hilyin
The only thing weird I found about this, is the win8 ie10 vmware for mac on
microsoft.com comes with a boot virus, or so says Avast. It reports it has
Kampana-37XX. Screenshot:
[http://i.imgur.com/wXOu3uJ.png](http://i.imgur.com/wXOu3uJ.png)

------
kogir
It's about time. The "Grab them all with cURL" instructions are also a nice
touch.

~~~
sdfjkl
I had no idea curl supported that kind of syntax. Neat.

~~~
calebegg
It's actually bash syntax (the curly brace part):

    
    
        $ echo a{b,c}{d,e}

~~~
masklinn
FWIW it's also available in zsh and ksh93.

------
jsingleton
I got the previous images the last time this site came up. Using Hyper-V that
comes with Win 8 [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/07/bringing-
hyper...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/07/bringing-hyper-v-to-
windows-8.aspx) to run them. Works a treat. VMWare workstation is also very
good though.

~~~
tracker1
I've been using VMWare Workstation for about a decade now... I've tried a few
other VM platforms, and they've all not been quite as usable imho... I will
say their support of ESXi updates, and pretty much dropping VMWare Server has
been pretty bad.

------
novaleaf
If you have access to a windows box, here's a better solution: Install IE10
and use the dev tools (F12). there you can set browser emulation to IE
7,8,9,10.

doesn't include ie6, but not many people still use it:
[http://www.ie6countdown.com/](http://www.ie6countdown.com/)

~~~
Pwnguinz
IE10's dev tools emulation is not perfect, and has its own set of quirks.
_Especially_ as it relates to the JS runtime[1].

[1] [http://alexjmackey.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/how-accurate-
ie-...](http://alexjmackey.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/how-accurate-ie-dev-
tools/)

~~~
novaleaf
thanks for the tips guys, i guess i have to give the ie7 one a download :/

------
joshstrange
Have any of you actually used these? To start off they are a pain to
download/setup, come on Microsoft, you make the freaking OS and you can't
package it any better? Second, these VM's are constantly complaining about not
being activated. I understand that MS can't just rip that part of the OS out
however it's a massive slap in the face to have them act like they give a shit
about web developers and then have them provide sub-par VM's. I can pirate the
OS and make my own (better) VM's which is really sad if you ask me. Also I
have had the VM's shut down on me multiple times to go "update".

TL;DR: These VM's suck and you are better off pirating the OS and making your
own VM's.

~~~
PostOnce
This free Honda Civic sucks, you'd be way better off stealing a Ferrari.

That's some pretty odd logic. What about buying the OS? Since you're, you
know, using it for work? Is that not an option? The ROI would be pretty high,
I'm guessing. If I only had the on-screen keyboard, my solution would be to
buy a keyboard, not shoplift one.

~~~
phaemon
> his free Honda Civic sucks, you'd be way better off stealing a Ferrari.
> That's some pretty odd logic.

It is indeed, mainly because your analogy is so awful. You might as well have
said:

"This free cake sucks, you'd be way better off beating someone to death with
an elephant."

It would be equally stupid but at least it has cake in it.

~~~
PostOnce
I don't understand where stealing the better service comes into the flow of
thought.

Free service is bad. Solution, buy better service? Why is the solution steal
better service? It's immediately convenient and cheaper, but the long term
seems disadvantageous to multiple parties.

~~~
phaemon
> I don't understand where stealing the better service comes into the flow of
> thought.

A Ferrari is a service now? Or have you given up on your analogy? In either
case, accepting something that's freely given isn't stealing.

~~~
PostOnce
What? I didn't imply accepting a gift was stealing, I said that if you got a
free gift, didn't like it, and wanted something better, the obvious next step
is to buy something better. Yet joshstrange's _immediate_ next step is to
steal the better thing. Not to even look for a price quote, but immediately to
steal it.

Normal thought pattern: "I want something decent. I will see how much it costs
and perhaps purchase it."

Abnormal thought pattern: "I want something decent. I will steal it."

Why does Microsoft owe us anything? If we want to do business on Windows, and
support IE, the obvious and legal thing to do is buy a copy of Windows and use
it. Not bitch because they're not giving us the best possible stuff for free.

------
charlieok
I like this because I'm interested in creating more cross-platform projects.

By that I mean, not only does this webapp work on recent versions of Internet
Explorer, but a developer can easily get up and running on it using windows
(as well as Linux or OS X). I don't want a situation of “you should really be
using this OS to develop on this project, and not those other ones”.

I don't want to go out and pay for windows just to do this. It's not my
primary OS, and it isn't going to be. But I do want to be able to say, “you
can easily develop and run my app on Windows”. Having something like this from
Microsoft might be just the push I need to make that happen.

------
magnetikonline
This is rather old news - but it seems it's new to some.

I put together some setup notes for Linux with Virtual Box (Ubuntu in my case)
in a Gist, as I found some of the Microsoft setup notes were lacking:

[https://gist.github.com/magnetikonline/5274656](https://gist.github.com/magnetikonline/5274656)

------
scrapcode
Is it me or does this design make your head spin in circles, too? Not really a
relevant discussion of the topic at hand, but damn... This is one of the worst
designs I've experienced in a while, in a brain-is-so-confused-my-eyes-are-
crossing, kind of way.

------
tracker1
I find it funny that the Linux platform dropdown doesn't offer the VMWare
VM...

------
pixelcort
How does this compare to what you get when you run the ievms script?

[https://github.com/xdissent/ievms](https://github.com/xdissent/ievms)

~~~
adamcw
I'm pretty sure they are sourced from the same VM's.

The only notable difference is that ievms converts (or did when I tried it
last) from the VirtualPC copy - MS is now allowing these for download in other
formats (Parallels/VMWare/Virtualbox) without needing to convert.

------
ndr
Does anyone use this Browserling?
[https://browserling.com/](https://browserling.com/)

------
dalanmiller
Except these stop working after 90 days.

~~~
nness
Its a virtual machine though, just make a snapshot once you have it booted and
working as you'd like, and roll it back when you're done. If I remember, that
was Microsoft's recommendation as well.

------
bti
Do these still have time limits on them?

~~~
tomku
Yes, but you can just re-import the image every so often. They're meant to be
transient VMs for testing, so blowing them away every 90 days shouldn't be a
problem.

~~~
nness
You can also just snapshot them, and roll-back when you're done.

------
wcfields
I had been using these to game my Dropbox account:

1\. Configure the VM up the point of signing up / downloading the client. 2\.
Change the PC Name & spoof a new Mac Address in the VM. 3\. Sign up under a
referral code. 4\. Rollback to the snapshot in step 1.

~~~
trust-me
How about: 1. Use your technical skills to built something of value. 2. Use a
small part of the inevitable monetary reward to pay Dropbox.

