I noticed this interesting article from ComputerWorld earlier today:
Microsoft Corp. has warned users updating to Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) that they won’t be able to downgrade from Internet Explorer 7 to the older IE6 without uninstalling the service pack.
As a web designer, this article hit close to home. While I think forcing Internet Explorer 7 down XP users’ throats is great (eliminating the horrible non-standard compliant IE6), this only further complicates the IE6 / web designer relationship.
If I choose to upgrade to XP Service Pack 3, which includes multiple important bug fixes and speed increases, I remove my ability to test in Internet Explorer 6. I could care less for my own personal projects, but I am sure not having the ability to test in IE6 would upset my clients. Then again, this change may remove the remaining IE6 users off the net, thus making IE6 testing obsolete.
Just for kicks, I checked my own website statistics. Currently 20% of my traffic comes from Internet Explorer, with 6% of my total traffic being IE6 users. Do you think this number will dwindle over the coming weeks and months or will the remaining IE6 users remain strong (most likely spyware-infested computers with automatic updates disabled)? When do you think disregarding IE6 users is fair as a web designer?
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Just to confirm I’m running Win XP Pro + SP3 with both IE7 and IE6 installed and working, using this method.
One the one hand I have a slight problem with “forced” anything; on the other IE6 does need to be euthanized.
Actually I’ve come to think of testing in IE6 as more of a generic “robustness test” for my code, rather than a support necessity. Heck, if it holds together in IE6, it probably looks alright to anyone likely to see it.
By using conditional comments with a link to an IE6-specific stylesheet for any fixes it will be very easy to “flick the switch” and turn off IE6 support altogether should M$ manage to bury said browser via forced upgrades.
Thanks for the link. I’ll have to check that out.
I find it interesting that you put it as a robustness test. I’ve actually held that same thought. Over the years I’ve become aware of where IE6 fails at rendering and usually I am able to code around that from the start. If I do need tweaks, I use a separate stylesheet, so I can remove it if anything ever changes.
I totally agree with the idea. Though in the ideal world they’d force the upgrade to FF2
As to testing on both IE7 and IE6, there’s a much more easy way than what Bruce has offered. Check out MultipleIEs.
I have been using it for quite a while now. Works great.
I’m pretty sure that’s what Bruce suggested. At least what I gathered from his post.
My mistake – I’ve quickly skimmed through the text and didn’t realize it was actually the same thing
@Karolis: Yep, same thing
The beauty is that this works not only in Boot Camp for Mac-based developers; it’s great having IE6, IE7, Firefox, and Safari open simultaneously with the help of Parallels VM. Although I haven’t tested it since I tend to edit “live” files on my server (hence changes are reflected across all browsers) I do believe that you can configure MAMP Pro so that IE under Parallels can reflect localhost edits.
You can do it with the non-pro version of MAMP. I use it all the time.
I think we have to be clear here that if you have IE6 installed when you upgrade to XP SP3 then you will keep IE6 and be able to upgrade to IE7 at a later date. It’s only if you have IE7 already installed *before* installing XP SP3 that you won’t be able to downgrade once SP3 is installed. The reason for this I believe is to do with being left in an inconsistent state if you upgrade to XP SP3 and then downgrade to IE6 from IE7, therefore having half your system running on SP3 and the other half on SP2. There’s more info at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/05/ie-and-xpsp3.aspx
Just install a couple VMs for integration testing. There’s really no reason to keep the VM updated for security / speed / bug fix reasons if you’re just pointing it at localhost and known sites unless you’re actually using Windows for anything beyond integration testing (which, of course, begs the question: why?)
It’s fairly easy and cheap these days to create a couple 5-10GB VMs and put Windows with IE6 in one and IE7 in the other with SP3. Or, even better, just ignore the service packs beyond 2 since they don’t really affect the browser.
The only thing I use my Windows VM for other than browser tests is Visual Studio development, which runs fine in SP2.
Why would it really bother you that much? I stopped caring about supporting IE long ago. Where I used to work, I was required to make sure it was compatible with NS4! This is when Phoenix betas were trickling out, Netscape was no longer the big guy on campus. Unfortunately I was using IE6 since it was much faster than NS.
Nowadays, I will only develop XHTML Strict, CSS, and make sure it works Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konquerer for Win, Mac, and Linux. If it works for IE6, great. If not, whoopie-doo.
Trust me, I know it is frustrating that my transparent PNGs look like shit, but I don’t let it bother me. If a user wants to know why their web experience is shitty, I’ll tell them stop using antiquated technologies. IE8 is about out already, so thats two versions old, IE6 is. Since Vista is now out, does that mean developers need to make sure their software will run on Windows 2000? Or I dare say, Windows 98??!! Just as my first web development job days, you need to draw the line at some point.
Supporting older technologies is what made Microsoft so great in the early ’90s. Now them maintaining spaghetti code is a great headache. By Microsoft wanting to make their crappy software backwards compatible for some unheard of partner so he can use some bizarre program that nobody has the disks for now work on Vista, defeats the whole purpose of developing brand spanking new technology.
Apple did it by stopping the support of Carbon. By supporting these “classic” toolkits when Cocoa is preferred, nobody will use it unless it is forced upon you.
I think by making your website work on such old stuff is not the way to go, regardless of what statistics say.
Sorry for making this so long, just thought I’d share because I have been in this boat before and I think you shouldn’t limit your creativity just so IE6 can view your website!
People running pirated copies of Windows XP are most likely not going to update to SP3, and they make up the largest chunk of users around here.
What makes you say that? My understanding is nothing breaks, from what I was told.
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