Tag Archives: Internet Explorer

Testing a website on different versions of IE

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So, no matter how much you argue that it’s an ancient, irrelevant browser; there’s no way you can wriggle out of having to test your web app against IE6 on WinXP. But… trying to find a machine with it lying around might be difficult. Magnanimous Microsoft have made testing your web app on different IE/Windows combinations less tedious than it could be: combine Virtual PC with a collection of pre-built images and you’re on your way. Here are the details…

First, you’ll need to install Virtual PC:

  • Download the latest version of Virtual PC from here if you’re running Windows 7
  • Download Virtual PC 2007 from here if you’re running Windows XP/Vista

Next, you’ll need to download as many of the following combinations of Windows/IE as you want from here.

The Windows/IE combinations available are:

  • IE6 / XP SP3
  • IE7 / XP SP3
  • IE7 / Vista SP1
  • IE7 / Vista SP2
  • IE7 / Vista SP3
  • IE8 / XP SP3
  • IE8 / Vista SP1
  • IE8 / Vista SP2
  • IE8 / Vista SP3

Download the images you need, start them, get your testing done before the VM runs out of time (they’re time limited) and then get back to doing something less painful!

Enjoy your multi-IE-version testing. Rather you than me ;)

How to show all cookies for a page

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It’s not always that you can test a website from the comfort of Firefox + Firebug + FireCookie. When you have to use another browser where checking cookies isn’t so much fun (er… that’s all of them but firefox), you can at least get a dump of them to an alert box by putting the following into the address bar once the page has loaded:

javascript:alert(document.cookie.split(';').join('\n'))

Bookmark it to make life easier!

IE Developer Toolbar

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Firefox and FireBug make a great combination. It makes working with Watir nice and easy. Unfortunately, some apps refuse to work with FireFox (IBM Maximo and Oracle SPL Customer Care and Billing, aka: “CC&B” are examples), so MSIE is the only option. Fortunately, there is a toolbar that you can install to get a watered-down Firebug equivalent; it’s called the “Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar”. Get it here.