How to install multiple version of IE (IE6,7) on virtual pc

Question

I want to use ie7 on windows virutal pc, but to no avail. Below is what I have done.

I downoaded and installed three files from the link below:

1. WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe

   2.Windows6.1-KB958559-x64-RefreshPkg.msu

   3.Windows6.1-KB977206-x64.msu

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

After installation, I can run Windows XP virtual machine. But it has IE6. I have to have multiple version of IE.

Then I downled a file

XPSP3-IE7.exe

From http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=21eabb90-958f-4b64-b5f1-73d0a413c8ef&displaylang=en

Then I run XPSP3-IE7.exe, which is a IE7Compat.vhd.

My question is how to use IE7Compat.vhd.

Any step-by-step installation instructions will be very much appreciated!

Answer 1

I'm sorry but you can't have multiple versions of IE on a single XP machine, there's simply no way to have different side-by-side versions of the same browser.

If you need different browser versions for your tests you are going to need separate Viratual PC images of Win XP, for each of the versions. So if you want to test IE 6, 7 and 8 you need to create 3 different virtual PC disk images of XP and then install each version of the browser on each of them.

If your host machine is a Windows 7 machine (Professional, Enterprise or Ultimate) there's a simpler way to do this, by using the Windows 7 "XP Mode". You'll have to create 3 different "XP modes" anyway (which underneath are simply three different virtual PC disk images) and then install the three different browsers there as explained in this post by the Microsoft guys themselves:

Testing Multiple Versions of IE on One PC

Hope that helps!