

Download test VMs of IE for OSX, Linux or Windows - paukiatwee
https://modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools

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raddevon
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.

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pling
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.

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levosmetalo
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.

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

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

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gaelow
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.

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matthewmacleod
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.

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gaelow
The goal is to deliver the most profitable code in the specified timeframe and
with the resources provided. That's how you organize your priorities.

For us in many cases it means to throw away vendor specific solutions in favor
of most-major-browser compatible subsets of the current industry standards,
even if it means throwing out support for older versions of IE.

For some users it might mean using a different service, but for most of them
it means switching to a different browser because their favorite app doesn't
work on IE.

And that's why Microsoft is going for standards compliance and timely browser
updates more than ever.

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nailer
Do they have Windows Phone VMs yet? You can run them under OS X with some
work, but there's no touch cursor ATM so you're flying blind. MS could fix
this pretty easily.

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19402478/is-it-
possible-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19402478/is-it-possible-to-
run-the-windows-phone-8-simulator-directly-in-os-x)

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dave1010uk
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.

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fatrachet
You can find ready to go Mac OSX VMs online (torrent/usenet etc., usually
2-6gb).

They worked on any PC I tried them on, but without GPU acceleration, although
I had to install a VMWare MacOS enabler (that was bundled with the VM) because
VMWare disallows OSX by default I believe, might be different with Virtualbox.

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

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extra88
You mean ship IE for OS X _again_ like they did before Apple made Safari? For
a time, IE for Mac was the very best browser.

I could see them doing it if it was a gateway to an ecosystem the way Chrome
is for Google. For "Linux" i.e. some specific variant that became popular with
consumers.

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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".

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deadgrey19
Finally! Microsoft has realised that real developers use OS X/Linux for
development and don't have or care to test on Windows machines. This is a good
thing for Microsoft and a good thing for the web!

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yaur
Its more than that. IE9 is the latest version that can be installed on XP and
is not supported on later versions of Windows. And while its fine to tell
users to get a better browser for hobby or internal sites having to deal with
user still on XP is an unfortunate reality in a lot of cases.

