Installing Internet Explore 8 and 9 along side each other

Question

Is there a way to do this? I currently don't want to go install the new one because it will most probably overwrite i.e. 8. Web development needs to make sure that it is acceptable on common browsers and 8 is still a big part of the market.

Solution

You can use IE9 to emulate IE8, but its not perfect. The only true solution is to use a VM.

Microsoft has IE 'images' that you can use: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11575. I've found them to be somewhat of a pain, and not stable. Maybe YMWV.

If you have a windows disk that you could install into a VM, then you could run that VM and install the IE8 on that.

Comments

[Šime Vidas]

You can easily set the "Browser mode" in IE. So, IE9, for instance, contains IE9, IE8, and IE7, all in one. Just open the F12 tools and click on "Browser mode".

[DylRicho]

Unfortunately, this doesn't work for IE11. In IE10, Microsoft stopped the ability to use conditional comments; in IE11, document modes don't exist. Well, they do exist, but the program doesn't seem to actually differentiate them. For example, you can select 'IE8 document mode', but any conditional comments that would normally be used by IE8, are simply ignored and treated like they don't exist. Way to go Microsoft; you 'fixed' a feature that wasn't broken in IE10! Typical.