Testing IE6-11 on OSX the Right Way

Testing on IE is always a pain in the neck, but it's a necessary evil so let's at least do it the best we can.

First, download a fresh copy of VirtualBox for OSX.

Make sure you have a ton of space available on your hard-drive (check the IEVMs repo for specs). Then, install IEVMs.

Now wait forever. Go out for lunch. Adopt a highway. You'll hear some familiar (read: haunting) Windows startup sounds here and there. If you're afraid your computer will stop downloading them or something, grab Caffeine and make sure it's activated for 5 hours before leaving your download.

Once the download completes, fire up VirtualBox and you'll see your new, fresh, beautiful VMs.

Open them up and bask in the glory of old copies Windows. Fire up IE and get Firebug Lite so you will at least have remotely usable developer tools.

Want to check out localhost? Navigate to http://10.0.2.2 (you can add port numbers if you need tp).

If this is all too much, use a free trial of BrowserStack and see if it tickles your fancy. It's much laggier than the virtual machine route, but much easier to get started with and if you don't particularly care about IE8 or making sure things are pixel-perfect in IE9 then it's a pretty solid solution.

Hopefully a hero will arise at the RemoteDebug Project and provide some VM friendly Chrome DevTools for IE testing but I'm not holding my breath.

Enjoy!