Hi,
How can I emulate IE6 properly?
I have IETester but it shows that the site looks fine while stand-alone version of IE6 (not on Vista) tells me there’s sth wrong.
What are your suggestions?
Use a virtual machine with an OS using IE 6.
Microsoft provides Virtual PC iamges for free: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en
The easiest and most effective way is to get a second-hand laptop and install an old version of Windows and IE6 on it. While emulators get pretty close to IE6 rendering and behaviour, they don’t usually get it exactly right.
Thanks you.
First option looks cheaper second maybe more effective.
While don’t have second laptop will try the first one.
Virtual PC isn’t an emulator. It actually sets up a virtual computer that is really unning a separate operating system.
Agreed, there is a very big difference between a virtualized environment (a simulation which uses the actual product, it’s just the hardware that’s “faked”) and emulation (where the software itself is reproduced to give the same effect). If you use Windows 7 you could use XPMode (if your CPU supports hyper virtualization) which has the same effect as Virtual PC (without external dependencies). Though I am curious what error’s the OP is getting in IETester, generally speaking IETester is pretty accurate in replicating the browser environment. The Spoon Web Browser Installers are also equally good at the job. 
That’s a VERY debatable point, ESPECIALLY so far as M$ Virtual PC is concerned - but in general when it comes to all ‘virtual machines’…
Why? Because in VirtualPC/VMWare/SunVB/Parallels - Video? EMULATED. Hard disk and Optical? EMULATED. Keyboard and Mouse access? EMULATED.
Only a small part of the code is allowed to ever run native inside a VM - and usually it’s run past a JIT type compiler to extract any calls that might need to be emulated first… This is why on logic flow you can reach almost 90% native speed, but on disk or video access it’s like driving with the parking brake on. (and just one of the many reasons if you’re gonna blow $50/mo on a VPS, I say cough up the extra $10/mo and get a dedicated Atom 330 server)
In any case, Microsoft Virtual PC is a buggy bloated wreck, and the testing distro’s of XP and the so called “XP Mode” thing for windows 7 are pretty much rubbish.
My advice is to grab a copy of <s>Sun</s> Oracle VirtualBox and install a copy of XP in it (old XP install numbers and disks are easy enough to find these days - I got a stack of spares from machines now running 7). It’s just a better VM experience since it supports all the CPU VM extensions, but unlike the newest VPC doesn’t REQUIRE them. It doesn’t hijack the host OS like VMWare does (which can often suck ram and CPU even when the stupid thing is not in use) and is starting to have some really impressive 3d acceleration capabilities.
… and the beta builds will now run a Snow Leoptard guest off the original disk with no modifications.
That’s my current testing setup… IE8 installed native on 7 host, then IE7 and the tredosoft IE 6, 5.5 and 5.01 installed on XP under VirtualBox.
Running XAMPP on the host OS can also give you a more realistic testing base for your files… OR you can install a real linux server setup as another VM for ‘real’ testing.
Yes the hardware is emulated - no one has disputed that but this thread isn’t about hardware.
The discussion is with regard to the IE6 software which is NOT emulated when you run it in a VM. You are running the exact same version of IE6 as everyone else and only the hardware differs (which is the case anyway between running IE6 on different hardware configurations anyway - the operating system’s job is to form a layer between the application and the hardware so that the software (in this case IE6) is not dependent on specific hardware to run.
Sorry, but that’s like saying a N64 .bin ROM file isn’t emulated under UltraHLE. Just because it’s the actual program code doesn’t mean it’s not operating in an emulation environment.
Not that said argument effects running older versions of IE in a VM in any way.