Testing javascript on ie7 and ie8

I am starting to code for older versions of IE like IE7 and IE8 , is is safe to use IE9 and set the browser mode to IE7 or IE8 and test javascript and of course how a project looks visually or do I need to install some other software.

Please advice.

Thanks.

Compatibility mode is not that useful if you plan on testing your apps properly. I’ve not had a great experience with it personally. Been a few years now so I don’t recall my particular gripes with it.

What I do is install a windows virtual PC VHD and test on the actual browser. If you have windows 7 it’s already got XP mode which you can use to test ie7 or 8, depending on whether you upgrade the browser in XP mode. IIIRC it’s ie6 by default.

Your other choice is to get a VHD directly from microsoft and download separate images of XP for ie7 and ie8 and test.

There’s a program called IETester, but running IE in browser mode works fine as well, I do that myself.

I do test directly with IE8 which spits more bugs than compatibility more on IE9 . Also IE8 ’s mode with IE7 manages to show good reality (bugs). So I would recommend to have IE8 . I mean IE9 requires very less testing if something works correctly on chrome / FF

Is there any way I can have installed on my computer ie8 and ie9, I am suing windows 7 ?

FWDesign said
Is there any way I can have installed on my computer ie8 and ie9, I am suing windows 7 ?

download the images for xp with ie7 and ie8 as i already told you earlier : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11575

never mind the edit. You need one of those images above

OK I will try that, I wonder how things will be when we will have IE15 , this is so stupid god…

I manage to install virtual PC but I am stuck with one thing. How can I access my local drive from the virtual machine?

I usually copy the files and paste them into the virtual machine, that’s fine for small projects.

But how. All I see is a .vhd files is not possible to copy paste.