Test versions of IE from 6 through 11 and Microsoft Edge using virtual machines

[escobar]

I've tried Virtual Machines like this before and found that while they work great they're clunky, take up precious space, and I need to test with many versions. I've tested a few paid solutions (Ghostlab, Browserstack, Cross Browser Testing) and so far am sticking with Browserstack. I have absolutely no association with any of these websites, only clients who demand their websites work in archaic versions of Internet Explorer :P

I do still use the IE VMs for testing, and I even use a real PC for further testing once the website is "ready". Just lately been preferring to quickly test while developing in my browser without worrying about spinning up a VM or anything.

[SXX]

You can save a lot of disk space if you'll use backing files. E.g you can have one base Windows disk image that used by any number of VMs configured differently. So you basically only need like 5-15GB for compressed Windows image and then each VM configuration will only take another 1-2GB at most.

Personally use it with QEMU / KVM now, but totally sure VMWare had backing files support too.

[nness]

I've have the opposite opinion. I have found that space is a premium, even if I'm using 20gb for my VM's that's still a small portion of my Mac's SSD.

The biggest issue we had with Browserstack (and the like) was that it required us to tunnel through our proxy. Whilst I appreciate this simplifies testing localhosts, it made us all a bit nervous. Not to mention Browserstack's recent breach.

A VM is a small price to pay for an insulated and customisable testing environment. Plus some sites have the nice habit of badly crashing early IE versions, and recovery from that is quick on a VM.

Not to mention, with IE VM's we can install additional browsers (to enjoy the rendering differences in Windows and Mac Firefox versions). We can also customise IE to reflect the client's environments (for intranets or POS systems, etc). Pretty handy.

[pwenzel]

My Virtualbox images from modern.ie have been sitting around collecting dust ever since I started using Browserstack. You can even use it to test HTML5 audio.

Haven't tried it yet, but I hear you can also use Browserstack for Selenium tests (https://www.browserstack.com/automate/php).

[nailer]

I used to hate Browserstack due to latency but re-tried it recently and it's MUCH faster. If you've tried it before it's worth giving it another shot.

[pkrumins]

Browserling (https://www.browserling.com) is also an option.

[BjornW]

I'm happy that Microsoft provides these VM's and I hope other vendors (Hi Apple!) would provide VM's as well. So we can make sure the web is accessible for anyone regardless the browser they use.

[me_bx]

Also worth noting: remote IE [1] can be used to test IE from a remote machine.

Would prevent from wasting disk space installing one window VM for each IE version to test...

Has anyone tried it? It's not clear from the site which version of IE is available from that service.

Too bad they don't have a linux client either :(

[1] https://remote.modern.ie/

[matwood]

I've tried using the remote IE over RDP for OSX. It's horrible. It might work okay just to see if a site loads, but if you have any JS issues and to try and debug it locks up and quickly becomes unresponsive.

[narsil]

I've tried it from my Mac. It's far more convenient than a VM. It runs IE 11.

[steilpass]

you've made me excited.

after 15 minutes fooling around I give up. the download in the mac app store fails with some network issue.

[therealmarv]

In the past they also provided Vagrant boxes. Some people also developed easy Vagrantfiles for them. See here in a official blog post http://blog.syntaxc4.net/post/2014/09/03/windows-boxes-for-v... Would be great if they will support Vagrant officially for Edge. Although https://github.com/xdissent/ievms/ is pretty close but not maintained good (last update last year). This is how I want to spin up IE VMs:

    vagrant init somwhere/edge
    vagrant up

[edpichler]

I havent read about Vagrant yet. Is it similar to docker? Vmware? What is the big deal in Vagrant?

[defied]

We're providing the same IE/Edge versions at http://testingbot.com so people can instantly test from their browser with mouse&keyboard, without having to download the VMs

[acqq]

IE6 on Windows XP is 1 GB zipped. Microsoft Edge containing VM is 5 GB zipped.

All VMs expire:

"Please note that these virtual machines expire after 90 days. We recommend setting a snapshot when you first install the virtual machine which you can roll back to later."

[sleepychu]

They expire but you can, and they advise you to, snapshot and roll back. The purpose is to stop you just using it as a windows vm for doing work on.

[9point6]

The windows 7 ones allow you to re-arm the activation a number of times (I think it's up to 5 times?) using the `slmgr /rearm` command.

Does the windows 10 one not have this facility?

[cptskippy]

I have no shortage of disk space so I just keep the Zip files in the same folder as the VMs. Then when they expire it's a simple matter of extracting the Zip overwriting the files. This works nicely with Virtual PC because any virtual hardware configs made to the VM are kept external from the image and aren't overwritten.

[discordance]

Anyone monitoring high volume sites care to share the number of Edge users they are seeing visiting their site? - would be interesting to know the numbers a few weeks after the Win10 launch.

[elros]

Sure, here are my 2¢: Aggregated numbers for last week show Edge at 0,01% of the ~12.400.000 sessions. The numbers for yesterday show 0,31% of the ~1.700.000 sessions.

[MattBearman]

My stats show that this month (Aug 2015) Microsoft Edge is about 0.9% of total, and about 1.2% of Windows

[acdha]

On a global, general interest site I'm seeing it around ~0.4% currently.

One note: Google Analytics makes this harder to search for because they waited until a day or two ago to update their regex; until then Edge users were listed as Chrome 42.0.2311.135.OS on Windows NT.

[miyuru]

mine is not much popular, but 1.02% edge users this month.

[zaf]

I've been using this for the last 6 months as part of cross browser testing and it has been a life saver. The alternatives are even a bigger pain in the rear.

I have no idea who to thank but thank you.

[nkuttler]

And https://github.com/xdissent/ievms for a hassle-free installation.

[spacecowboy_lon]

They also do VM's for a number of android/windows phones which is useful for testing mobile devices.

https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/msft-android-emu...

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/ff4025...

[stuaxo]

Are there issues with using this to test builds of desktop apps ?

I would like to test various Python apps on windows in an automated fashion.

[therealmarv]

not sure if officially/legally allowed (pretty sure not automated) but it's at least possible! :)

[the-dude]

IE has fallen below 5% on the sites I monitor. Why bother?

[bes7ow]

I love these for testing sites and HTML emails in different versions of Outlook.

However, activation can be very annoying and lock a VM completely.

[rjsw]

How much testing of HTML emails do you need ? Just bounce them back to the sender.

[AlikhanPeleg]

If you don't want to (or cannot) share the page to test with a third party there are client-only solutions like http://www.browseemall.com which take up less space and are more convenient than full blown VMs.

[acqq]

From the installation pdf:

"3. NO ACTIVATION.

To prevent its unlicensed use, the software contains activation enforcement technology. Because the software is licensed for testing use only, you are not licensed to activate the software for any purpose even if it prompts you to do so."

[nness]

Makes sense to me. You can test absolutely everything without having to activate.

[rbanffy]

Guys... This is ancient.

[rocky1138]

But still valuable. It's also obvious from the comments that a few people here have never seen this before.

[KayEss]

I wish they supported kvm for Linux rather than virtualbox.

[hannob]

I've used these images many times with qemu/kvm. No problem, just create a snapshot.

[threedaymonk]

This lets you run the images under KVM: https://github.com/lentinj/ie-vm

[mkesper]

It's possible to convert virtualbox images to kvm.

[espadrine]

Doesn't qemu have image converters?

[circa]

I haven't tried this yet but where was this 10+ years ago? I feel like its too late for a site like this, but I guess it will still be very useful.

[zwily]

They've been doing this for at least 5 years now.

[grinnick]

This is the first time I've seen the .ie TLD (ireland) used in a technical context. It's a cool idea given the Microsoft context.