Verifying in IE

[Jonathan Duncan]

On 11 May 2012, at 09:33, Lane Brooks wrote:

> I developed a simple registration web page for a non-profit fundraiser. 
> I have a virtualbox installation of windows xp that I run out of linux 
> to check functionality on IE, but I have only been verifying in IE8. I 
> just received word of a user having problems on IE7, though. My page is 
> pretty simple, so I thought I was safe from needing to figure out how to 
> install different versions of IE for testing, but now it looks like I 
> need to. Given that web development is not my area of expertise and 
> given that it has been probably ten years since I have used windows more 
> than just occasionally, I was hoping people in the area of web 
> development could offer insight on how to install and test with multiple 
> versions of IE.
> 
> From my google searches, it seems different versions of IE cannot be 
> co-installed, but I have found sights offering executable downloads that 
> supposedly include all the IE versions. They seem more like Trogan 
> Horses to me. Other sites seem to indicate you need to use a different 
> virtual machine for each version of IE you want to test with. If that is 
> the case, I can clone my current virtual machine, but then how do I 
> downgrade IE? The information I get from googling is contradictory and 
> hard to know who to trust. Is there not some sort of Microsoft issued 
> developer package with all the versions of IE that you can co-install on 
> one machine? If not, how do Microsoft employees verify their web pages 
> across their multiple browsers?
> 
What if you were to detect IE and if found display an unobtrusive message that their browsing experience may be impaired by the use of their current browser.  Then suggest a link or two for more acceptable browsers.  ;)