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Running IE6, IE7 and IE8 on your Mac

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UPDATE – May 6th, 2013:

Microsoft has now officially released copies of their OS/Browser bundles for all OSes using VirtualBox, Parallels or VMWare! You can get them from modern.ie.

I use a Mac, which means testing my work in IE6, IE7 and IE8 is a pain. I have Parallels installed but I don’t want to buy extra copies of Windows just to test in IE. Plus, Parallels doesn’t compress the virtual hard drive so each OS takes about 10 – 20GB of space.

The good news is that Microsoft provides free VirtualPC disk images for each of their browsers:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B…

The bad news is that they wont run on Mac and VirtualPC wont run inside Parallels or VMWare Fusion — but I’ve found a solution! We can convert the disk images to work for VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox.

Setup

First go and download the versions of IE you want to use:


http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B…

To do the conversion you’ll need a copy of the Qemu command line tool. I couldn’t get it to work on Mac, so you’ll probably need to use it on a Linux or Windows machine. (you can do this through Parallels or VMWare Fusion too) Download, extract and install Qemu tool on your computer.

Linux

WILL NOT work on windows because it was not compiled to support files over 2GB.
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

Windows

Download “Qemu-0.9.1-windows.zip” from:
http://lassauge.free.fr/qemu/

VMWare Fusion

This is the easiest way to go and has superior support for shared network and clipboard between Mac and PC, except it means you’ll need to buy a copy of VMWare Fusion. I wrote these instructions using the trial version, someday I’ll buy my own full version.

The process will probably take less than an hour and require about 2Gb of space. These instructions are tailored towards using Windows for the file conversion with qemu. If you’re using Linux you’re probably smart enough to adapt these instructions to your system. Several people in the comments have mentioned being able to use Q on the Mac to do the file conversion.

  1. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
  2. Use “cd” to go to the directory you download and extracted Qemu.
  3. Run:
    qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP2 with IE7.vhd" -O vmdk XPIE7.vmdk

    • “XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” is the path to the IE VPC file you downloaded
    • “XPIE7.vmdk” is the new file that VMWare Fusion will use.
  4. Wait…(will probably take 15 – 30 minutes)
  5. Move the new “.vmdk” file to your mac.
  6. Open VMWare Fusion and click File > New
  7. Go through the wizard and when you get to the “Virtual Hard Disk” page, expand “Advanced disk options”, check “Use an existing virtual disk” and use the dropdown to find the new “.vmdk” file.
  8. Finish the wizard and start it! (If prompted to upgrade the virtual harddrive, click “Yes”)
  9. Ignore any driver dialogs that ask you to insert a Windows CD. The VMWare Tools should install these drivers for you (see next step).
  10. Install the VMWare tools (Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools) as soon as Windows boots up. If installing the tools gives you a weird error, read the next section.
  11. You’re done!

Installing the VMWare Tools

If the VMWare Tools wont install automatically follow these simple steps to install it manually:

  1. With VMWare Fusion running click Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools
  2. Open your “My Computer” to see which drive letter the CDRom with the VMWare Tools has mounted to.
  3. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
  4. Type the following and press enter (change “D” to the drive letter from step 2):
    • msiexec -i "D:VMware Tools.msi"
  5. The installation wizard should open and walk you through the rest of the install.

VirtualBox

The great thing with VirtualBox is that it’s free and available for most OSes! The process will take a little longer and will temporarily require about 20Gb – 30Gb of disk space. In the end your IE virtual disk will only be about 2Gb.

You might be tempted to do the VMWare Fusion conversion, outlined above, and use the “.vmdk” file in VirtualBox. It’s true that VirtualBox supports “.vmdk”, but everytime I tried it I ran into massive problems.

These instructions are tailored towards using Windows for the file conversion with qemu. If you’re using Linux you’re probably smart enough to adapt these instructions to your system. Several people in the comments have mentioned being able to use Q on the Mac to do the file conversion.

  1. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
  2. Use “cd” to go to the directory you download and extracted Qemu.
  3. Run: qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP2 with IE7.vhd" -O raw XPIE7.bin
    • “XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” is the path to the IE VPC file you just downloaded
    • “XPIE7.bin” is the new file.
  4. Wait…(will take about an hour)
  5. Move the new “.bin” file to your mac. (or try the next 2 steps on the same machine)
  6. Install VirtualBox
  7. Convert and compress the “.bin” file. (This can also be done on Windows or Linux if you have VirtualBox on that machine)
    1. Open a terminal or command prompt.
    2. Go to the directory where your “.bin” file is.
    3. VBoxManage convertdd XPIE7.bin XPIE7.vdi (FYI: on Windows, VBoxManage is in “C:Program Filesinnotek VirtualBox”)
    4. VBoxManage modifyvdi XPIE7.vdi compact
  8. Open VirtualBox
  9. Click New
  10. Go through the wizard

    • Give it at least 350MB of “Base Memory”
    • Use the new “.vdi” file as the “Boot Hard Disk”.
  11. Finish wizard and start it!
  12. Ignore any driver dialogs that ask you to insert a Windows CD. The VirtualBox tools should install these drivers for you (see next step).
  13. Be sure to install the VirtualBox tools as soon as Windows boots up. (Click: Device > Install Guest Additions)

Now you can have all IE versions running on your Mac. Enjoy!