Comments on: Internet Explorer Testing Done Right

By: flyingmonkeyman

flyingmonkeyman — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:42:14 +0000

Man, that is just gobbledygook to me:

registry subkey [HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version Vector]

Rather than uninstalling and reinstalling software, why don’t you just delete the conditional comment while you are testing? Eg if you have an ie6 stylesheet hidden by a conditional comment, delete the cond. comment. Easy enough to put that back in.

I use a powermac to design in, test in Safari, Firefox, Netscape. Once they’re right I have an Intel Macbook Pro by my side, load up Windows XP in Bootcamp, open IE6 in Multiple IE and type in the URL. Just need to keep uploading the stylesheet (and/or html page) to the server is about the biggest hassle. (Oh,… and searching forums to work out why the hell it won’t behave in IE6).

By: Glen

Glen — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:09:45 +0000

I agree. VM ware fusion is really great. I have Vista on bootcamp (which can be run via VMware too) and XP, but I do all of my IE testing in XP (Vmware), where I run a standalone version of IE6 (make sure to adjust your registry to enable conditional comments) and the normal version of IE7 (I don’t test lower than IE6 anymore). Good article Chris!

By: hoozingo » Blog Archiv » Internet Explorer Testing Done Right

hoozingo » Blog Archiv » Internet Explorer Testing Done Right — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:03:26 +0000

[...] the details here Der Beitrag wurde am Wednesday, den 7. November 2007 um 07:21 Uhr veröffentlicht und wurde [...]

By: Jermayn Parker

Jermayn Parker — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:47:44 +0000

I personal would just use the Multiple IE tool bar and just keep either IE6 or 7. Installing the others is pointless…

However if you have separate computers (most web geeks do), have both full proper versions.

By: Chris Coyier

Chris Coyier — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:34:49 +0000

Thanks for noticing that fix Dan!

Also, I’ve heard great things about VMware Fusion. My choice of Parallels was just because that was the first one I tried and it works and it works well. I’d like to try out VMware someday if the situation arises, but in the meantime I still strongly endorse Parallels =)

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:04:28 +0000

Re the conditional comments problem, they have a note about that on Multiple IE's homepage:

by removing the "IE" key in the registry subkey [HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Version Vector] Internet Explore defaulted to respecting conditional comments based on the version number prebuilt in the program.

I've never had a problem with conditional comments after following these instructions.Also, Parallels is good, but I've had more luck with VMware Fusion. In my experience it out-performs Parallels, and allows my Macbook Pro to run plenty of other programs at the same time.

By: chipgrafx

chipgrafx — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 16:57:20 +0000

Conditional comments won’t work as expected when using Multiple IE. They will always default to the most current version of IE you are running under the multiple install. Meaning… if you run IE6 and IE7 (under the Multiple IE) and you are trying to use conditional comments to filter styles just for IE6, the conditional comments will not work correctly.

By: Chris Coyier

Chris Coyier — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:19:00 +0000

Thanks for the cautionary tip, and the suggestion John!

That is a great point about switching back and forth between IE 6 and 7. It doesn’t take as long as you might think, because simply uninstalling IE 7 will leave IE 6 behind.

By: John Schires

John Schires — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:14:13 +0000

A word of caution about Multiple IE, it doesn’t always render pages correctly. We had used this in the shop but found many problems (flash not working correctly, styles ignored or altered, etc).

Simple solution: If you have XP don’t upgrade to Vista. XP has IE6 installed as it’s default. If you want to switch between 6 & 7 it’s a simple matter of installing/uninstalling the IE7 upgrade. The few minutes this takes is worth it.