Internet Explorer on a Mac without a Windows license
I ran into a situation recently where I needed to test a web site in Internet Explorer 6, but the only computer with IE6 that I had reliable access to died a sudden death.
I upgraded my own computer to Internet Explorer 7. And because I’m running Windows XP Home, I couldn’t use the Virtual PC disk image offered by Microsoft. But since I also need to test web sites in IE 7, downgrading wasn’t an option.
Then I found out about IEs 4 Linux. It’s a project that will install Internet Explorer versions 5, 5.5 and 6.0 on any *nix machine running Wine.
Now I don’t have a Linux machine. But I do have a Mac with a copy of Parallels installed. That means I could install Xubuntu, install Wine, and then install IEs 4 Linux.
And aww junk! It almost works like a charm. Just one hitch:* my web site looks all janky now because the fonts are different. Now ordinarily I wouldn’t care, as long as the functionality is preserved, but the whole point of this exercise is to see how most Windows users would see the site.
How to fix? Just install the msttcorefonts package on your Xubuntu install (Applications → System → Synaptic Package Manager). Restart your virtual machine, and your fonts should be loaded and good to go.
Cost of Parallels: $79.99. Cost of a full Windows XP Professional license
By the way, IEs 4 Linux recently released a beta version that loads the Internet Explorer 7 rendering engine on top of IE 6.
Hat tip: John Daigle who told me all about the Wine + IEs 4 Linux combo.
(*Okay, there is more than one hitch. IEs 4 Linux has trouble with some — possibly most — PNG files.)
