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I'm running Windows 7 and I need to test a web application in IE8. I can't seem to find a version of IE8 anywhere for windows 7.

Can IE8 even be installed in windows 7?

Daft
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  • Have you tried using the Emulator in IE to make pages render in older versions of the browser? –  May 30 '14 at 14:41
  • If you need to test different IE versions, consider using the virtual machines available here: http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads – and31415 May 30 '14 at 14:41
  • Using WINE on Linux, i can run IE6-9 simultaneously, using the standard installers from MS website... There is an amusing project to port WINE to Windows, but i doubt it will run IE at the present time... – Mark K Cowan Jun 07 '14 at 14:58

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You can get free Windows 7 virtual machines from Microsoft with IE8 here. If I remember correctly, they disable themselves after a set time period, but you can download them again as many times as you want.

Keltari
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  • The link points to a version which is not maintained any more. All the up-to-date virtual machines can be found here: http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads – and31415 May 30 '14 at 14:48
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To do this, you need to uninstall IE using programs and features and forcew windows to reload the old IE8 instance.

  • Go into control panel > programs and features.
  • Go to "view installed updates" and uninstall IE updates.
  • Go back into programs and features.
  • Find your IE installation (whichever version) and uninstall it.
  • Reboot your PC.

Once you have rebooted - the default IE 8 will re-appear within windows as it was when it shipped with windows 7.

This Technet Page shows this process in slightly more details, should you need it.

Please note, however that this will replace your pre-existing version of IE and will downgrade you completely. If you need to test side-by-side, you can either use F12 Developer tools within a newer version of IE and select IE8 rendering, or you can use another web browser such as firefox and the IETabs2 addon. You can also look into websites like browsershots which will show you renderings if all you need to do is see how it would look.

Fazer87
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Internet Explorer 8 is the default browser after Windows 7 installation. And you can't have two versions of Internet Explorer installed at the same time so if you're using Internet Explorer 9, 10 or 11 you'll need to uninstall it to go back to Internet Explorer 8.

Anyway you can press F12 while running Internet Explorer 9, 10 or 11 this will open the Internet Explorer Developer Tools and change the browser mode to test code or web application for Internet Explorer 8.

Chris
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