Internet Explorer Mac OS X Setup

September 27, 2012 by

Internet Explorer LogoTesting is a very important part of the web design and development process. If you’re a Mac based web developer then you know how difficult Internet Explorer Mac OS X testing can be. Luckily, there’s a free, easy way to do it thanks to Oracle VirtualBox. Follow these steps to incorporate Internet Explorer Mac OS X testing (for multiple versions) into your web development project workflow.

1. Download Oracle VirtualBox

Oracle VM VirtualBox is a powerful open source tool that is sponsored by Oracle. It allows you to quickly and easily create a virtual PC for enterprise as well as home use. It is the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Download and install the latest version from their wiki.

2. Install Internet Explorer

Open up Terminal by navigating to /Applications/Utilities, then double-click on Terminal.

Be careful: Be extra cautious when using the command line Terminal. With great power comes great responsibility.

Use the commands below to install the version(s) of Internet Explorer that you wish to use with VirtualBox.

Take notice: This process does take some time, for me it took about 30 minutes to complete the process for a single version of Internet Explorer 8.

Install ALL versions of Internet Explorer: IE 7, IE 8, and IE 9

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash

Install Internet Explorer 7 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="7" bash

Install Internet Explorer 8 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="8" bash

Install Internet Explorer 9 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash

3. Open Oracle VirtualBox

Once the command line process finishes, open VirtualBox. You should see an instance for each installation you executed, click on an instance you wish to load then hit Start.

Remember: The default Windows admin password is Password1

Done!

That’s it, your done. Pretty easy right? Now for the best part, the VirtualBox software has a method for bypassing Microsoft’s 30 day activation lock called Snapshots.

This preserves the original Windows VM state and allows you to continuously use the IE virtual machine without any time limitation simply by reverting to the original snapshot once the 30 day lock occurs.
Internet Explorer for Mac the Easy Way

After the 30 Day Expiration

  1. Open VirtualBox
  2. Select the Internet Explorer virtual machine
  3. Click on the Snapshots button
  4. Boot from the original snapshot that was created

This will allow you to use Windows for another 30 days. You can do this as many times as you wish.

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Discussion

  • http://www.reneruizjr.com Rene Ruiz

    I like that this is free, but is this illegal in anyway?

    • http://www.kevinleary.net/ Kevin Leary

      Microsoft make Internet Explorer virtual machines freely available on their website for testing purposes:

      http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11575

      The github hosted scripts in this tutorial are simply automated scripts that make the installation of these VM’s painless:

      https://github.com/xdissent/ievms

      To my knowledge there is no question of ethics and legality going on, but I can’t be entirely sure. If anyone has any other thoughts related to legality please let me know.

  • http://www.yaronguez.com Yaron Guez

    Thanks for the tutorial! Any idea how to increase the memory so the virtual machine isn’t so slow? It seems to be greyed out in the settings.

    • http://www.kevinleary.net/ Kevin Leary

      Make sure the virtual machine is shut down. If it is the machine will appear as “Powered off”. If it’s not, right click on it and click “Discard saved state”. Once it is shut down you can edit the memory settings, 1GB seems to work well for my needs.

      • http://www.yaronguez.com Yaron Guez

        Thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/BaneyDesign Baney Design

    I haven’t tried this method yet, but I’ve heard so many people saying that software like VMWare Fusion, Parallels, etc. don’t render IE in a “true” display environment, that there are differences in how the browsers will render websites. I use VMWare Fusion, and I haven’t seen any differences between Fusion and a real PC running Windows.

    Have you noticed any differences between using the method described in your article and a “real” Windows PC?

    Too bad we have to do this type of testing. I’ve been building websites for over 7 years, and I totally loath this part of the website build process. That’s one of many reasons why I switched to a Mac.

    Thanks for your article!

    Adam

    • http://www.kevinleary.net/ Kevin Leary

      Hi Adam,

      I haven’t noticed any inconsistencies with this method, using the Microsoft provided instances seems to be very reliable. That said, in the past I’ve noticed differences with other virtualized methods such as Spoon.net (http://spoon.net/browsers/).

      To be honest, I think that a lot of it lies in the approach Microsoft has taken. Providing various “modes” for rendering is crazy. IE user’s can effectively simulate older versions of IE if they want, fudging up our universe.

      To be honest, I only use this method described above in circumstances where I need to test the interaction layer of a website. For basic visual testing I’ve switched to using BrowserStack, which is awesome. (http://www.browserstack.com/)

  • http://twitter.com/grimmweb Hans Grimm

    On a Retina Macbook w/SSD the installs go blisteringly fast. Only thing that held me back was the download bandwith :) Thanks!

    • http://www.kevinleary.net/ Kevin Leary

      Glad to hear it Hans!

  • Dominique

    I just installed internet explorer on my mac and it works perfectly. Thank you. I would like to know if I can install Microsoft access into that windows portal or would that cause it to crash?

  • Chris Soteriou

    What is the difference between doing this and installing the Full Windows XP?

    I know one requires a license but you can switch between different IE versions so much easier.

    Thanks for the article.

    • http://www.yaronguez.com Yaron Guez

      “but you can switch between different IE versions so much easier.” No you can’t. You can only have one version of IE installed at a time. That’s why you need a different image of XP for every version of IE. Theses images are at least slimmed down to just the essential drivers/software needed to run that version of IE.

      • Chris Soteriou

        In windows vista/7 when you are in the browser and hit the developer tools you can switch between the versions 7,8,9. I was assuming if you installed the full OS here you could do the same.

        Do you still use this method Yaron?

        Thanks for your reply.

        • http://www.yaronguez.com Yaron Guez

          I didn’t realize that. I just have two installs for IE 9 and IE 8 (I don’t support IE 7). The solution above works perfectly for me.

  • AKA

    Hi,

    I am a novice with a Mac OS 10.6 and need Internet Explorer for some websites I use. I found this tutorial very helpful and it got me to IE8. I have some basic questions and will appreciate your help:

    While running Virtual Box (IE8 on XP), it never asks for the Windows Admin Password (Password1)? Is this something new?

    After not using IE for a while, it started asking me for a Windows activation key (at Virtual Box start up. How does one get around it? As a work around, I deleted Virtual Box and then reinstalled it with IE8. That got me going; but I do not want to do this every 30 days. Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance.

    • http://www.kevinleary.net/ Kevin Leary

      Hi AKA,

      Perhaps Password1 has been saved? Maybe that is an adjustment to the process.

      Have tried following the steps at the bottom of the article? Basically, just reboot from the original snapshot every 30 days.

  • Milena

    I cant reactivate Windows after the 30 day expiration… :(

    • AKA

      Me too – I can’t reactivate Windows after 30 days and then cannot use IE with Virtual Box.

      The only way I got around it was by deleting and reinstalling Virtual Box and IE, which is a pain.

      If anyone knows of a way around this Windows activation (30 day limit) problem – it will be a great help and my thanks in advance for all suggestions

      • http://www.yaronguez.com Yaron Guez

        You need to save a snapshot of the virtual machine right after you set it up. As in after you install any browser addons or configure any settings. I call this snapshot “after setup.” From then on, whenever you boot up the machine, you do not just boot it up. Rather you restore this snapshot. In this way the computer will always think that it is the moment right after Windows was installed and it will never expire.