Internet Explorer 8 beta

[MaxD]

Anyone tried this? Apparerently you can download a 'virtual hard drive' from Microsoft to alow you to test this without over-writing your current IE browser.

[MikeyB]

You can download various virtual PC images with IE6, 7 or 8 on from Microsoft:
http://snipurl.com/24ly8 [www_microsoft_com]

Just downloading the IE8 image (IE8_VPC.EXE) as I type... It's 438MB

[funkmasterflow]

I just installed the IE8 in my own Virtual Machine.
At home I use VM-Ware and at the office I use VirtualBox on the Mac and VM-Ware on a XP Computer.
Both work fine as I could figure out...
Microsoft has done a lot of improvment to the IE8. But it still keeps me at work for some sites

[Karlis]

IE8 broke menus generated by our Easy Button & Menu Maker and this was because of some very clear bugs in IE8 Beta. IE8 RC seems to have fixed everything.

I do believe that at the end IE8 will be a very nice web browser

Also they promise to run every tab in its own process so that if one of them fails, the browser does not crash - I am hoping that this would improve stability.

[syrupcore]

I'm really hoping that large IT departments that are still forcing their users to use IE6 will realize that now that they're two versions behind, it's time to make the jump - and I hope they jump directly to 8. :)

still haven't tried it myself. don't really care until I need to develop for it.

[MikeyB]

I'm really hoping that large IT departments that are still forcing their users to use IE6 will realize that now that they're two versions behind, it's time to make the jump - and I hope they jump directly to 8.

We're still stuck on IE6 here, not heard any news about upgrading as yet (not up to me!) but then I do know we do have at least one system that does not work with IE7 so we are stuck till the suppliers update their system.

Who knows what new challenges IE8 will bring to corporates?

Luckily as I work in the IT department & do some web development I'm also allowed to have Firefox

[Karlis]

As I said IE8 is compatible with IE7 because using a meta tag or clicking an easy button engages the old IE7 rendering engine. So migrating from 7 to 8 should be a breeze. Not so much with IE6.

[MaxD]

I'm having a slightly odd problem with IE8 RC1 (Ithink that's its correct title) Downloaded the latest version of Adobe acrobat reader, and associated software, flash etc. Installed OK then I get a message which says 'your files are fragmented, uninstall Adobe and defrag then re-install (presumably) as per our release notes'. So I do all this, but now Flash fails to work in IE8, though it does in Firefox. It does in my admin account for IE8 and Firefox, but not my browsing account.

[chrisjlocke]

Why on earth does it matter if a file is fragmented or not? I hate Adobe, and with great software like Foxit PDF Reader available for free, I hope people stop using Adobe stuff.

[syrupcore]

I hate Adobe, and with great software like Foxit PDF Reader available for free, I hope people stop using Adobe stuff.

agreed. They are the most invasive software makers (though apple likes to take over PCs too). flash player and that's it. Well, I use photoshop at work. I've been trying to get down with the GiMP at home. still a little murky compared to photoshop's long since streamlined workflows but it gets it done.

ok ok, dreamweaver has one killer feature (AND ONLY ONE!): you can copy a section of an excel spreadsheet and paste it into "design view" and when you switch to code view it makes incredibly clean table code. For converting a big data table, it is a dream. I get a coworker to do it for me when faced with one so I can keep my system as adobe free as possible. :)

[chrisjlocke]

Rather than try IE8 in a whole virtual machine, you can use a virtual application. I've started to use these more and more, and they are very useful.

Try IE8, 7 or even 6 in a virtual application:
http://www.xenocode.com/Browsers/

This allows browsers to live side by side, without installing anything. Simply brilliant.

[MaxD]

Why on earth does it matter if a file is fragmented or not? I hate Adobe, and with great software like Foxit PDF Reader available for free, I hope people stop using Adobe stuff.

Deleted Adobe, as I have a pdf editor installed anyway. Defragmented properly now so have the reinstall option if required. Upgraded the 40gb hard disk on my 5.5 year old laptop to a much more pleasant 160gb. Its like a new machine again

Have also been looking at ipaper. This great if you want to add lots of files, without the file sizes or load on your sites.

[syrupcore]

Rather than try IE8 in a whole virtual machine, you can use a virtual application. I've started to use these more and more, and they are very useful.

Try IE8, 7 or even 6 in a virtual application:
http://www.xenocode.com/Browsers/

This allows browsers to live side by side, without installing anything. Simply brilliant.

That's fantastic. I actually run stand alone versions of most browsers (via portableapps.com) but it has limitations when it comes to the IE family. Looking forward to trying these out.