I was having problems with a site I'm building in IE7. I just clicked on update software on my PC and it's updated to IE8. The good news is that the problem isn't there in IE8, however, I need to fix it for IE7. There was a way of getting previous versions of IE on your machine, but I just googled it and it looked as if it was discontinued.

Anyone know of a way of having IE7 as a standalone browser? I don't think I'm going to bother about getting the site to work in IE6 as there's just too many issues and it's an old browser now.

Try this

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

and this
http://browsers.evolt.org/
http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

Cheers, I had found that first one and misread it so thought it said that it was broken, but on re-reading it appears it just breaks if you apply a particular update.

Unless I'm being thick (most likely) doesn't that just go up to 6 though? How do I go about installing 7?

Sadly not a clue they were in bookmarks I assumed there would be updated versions on those sites covering 7 as well.

I've got no idea how you could have more than one version in one install, I'm afraid.

However, as a last resort you could have a different install in a virtual machine?

Not a bad plan, not sure how I'd do it. I do have another PC kicking around that won't have been updated, so I might just see if I can get hold of a keyboard and mouse from a cupboard somewhere. The only trouble is, it hasn't been used for so long it might only be on v6 and I don't know how I'd install 7 rather than 8!

This looks interesting

http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

That sounds ideal, thanks for that!

We use an internet virtual browser site at work, but I don't have the details here.

It allows you to run a sandboxed virtual version of any browser... I'll try and dig up the link when I get to work.

Cheers Dave.

What did you end up using in the end then? I need to do the same, so I'd be keen to have a method recommended to me.

So far nothing! As ever, the job's got to a certain stage and I need some info from the client before I can finish, so more important work has taken over. I suspect I'll use that IETester that AlunD posted. That said, seeing as the site's a favour for someone and it works fine on IE8 and every other browser out there, I might not bother trying to get it to work with IE7. However, no doubt there will be future sites for corporate customers that will have to work on IE7 and no doubt IE6 too, so this will come in handy anyway.

An update is that AlunD's suggestion was exactly what I'm looking for. Unfortunately the issue I had is still there under IE7. I've been using Google Analytics on my site and it seems that people are visiting using IE7, so I'm going to have to see what I can do about sorting it out. Grrr…

This might sound like a daft suggestion but couldn't you just tell us what the problem with the site on IE7 is and we can try and help you fix it?

Absolutely, it would be a godsend, just thought it might be cheeky to ask! Site is here. On IE 7, the menu on the left appears under the main text rather than level with it. My suspicion is that it might have something to do with me getting the widths of the divs wrong due to not quite getting the css "box model". However, it works fine on IE8 and all the other browsers I've tried.