Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMware Fusion on Mac OS X
Update: Microsoft’s images are broken, and don’t work on anything except VirtualPC now. Mac and Linux users are out of luck for the time being. More information on the subject can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2009/09/09/running-the-ie-vpc-s-on-other-vpc-hosts.aspx.
By now, most front-end web developers have heard of the Standalone Internet Explorers (Wikipedia article). Although these are incredibly useful, they’ve always been hacky at best.
Because of that, we need to go the long way. We’ll download the “officially sanctioned” VirtualPC images containing a time-limited version of Windows XP SP3 and Internet Explorer 6.0, and then we’ll convert these images to the kind that work with VMware Fusion (which works on Mac OS X). This should only need to be done every 3 or 4 months when the images expire.
These instructions are loosely based on the ones found at Running IE6, IE7 and IE8 on your Mac.
Prerequisites
- You need to have VMware Fusion installed on your Mac.
- You need to have access to a Windows XP machine, as this is where the converting will happen.
For those in a hurry
Update: Sorry, but I got killed on my Amazon S3 hosting bill this month. If you want to convert the images, you can do them yourselves. 
Installing Qemu (FIRST-TIME ONLY)
- Download a small application to our Windows machine called Qemu. At the time of this writing, you want to download the regular version 0.9.1. Once it’s done, unzip it someplace that’s easy to get to via the command line (e.g.
c:\qemu). - Go into the Qemu folder, then into the
binfolder and copy all of the files in thebinfolder back to the original Qemu folder (you can simply copy-paste).
Downloading and Preparing stuff
- On Microsoft’s website, they have a page entitled Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image where you can download various time-limited images that allow you to test combinations of Windows XP SP3 or Vista, along with Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, and the 8.0 betas. In this example, we’re going to install the IE6/XP image but you can do whatever you need to do.
- We’ll need to unpack this download in Windows, so if you haven’t already, make sure you’re doing this part in Windows.
- Double-click it (in Windows) to begin unpacking it. It will warn you that it has an expiration date. On that date, we’ll have to download a fresh VPC image from Microsoft and do this all over again.
Converting the image
- You’ll want to copy the
XP SP3 with IE6.vhdfile into the Qemu folder. This will allow us to use simpler, more consistent commands to convert the image. - In your Windows VM go to
Start Menu > Run, type thecmdcommand, and click OK. - Using your deftly intimate knowledge of MS-DOS, use commands like
cdto navigate to where you unpacked Qemu. - If you don’t know MS-DOS commands from a hole in the wall, you can download Open Command Window Here from Microsoft, install it, find the Qemu folder in the normal Windows Explorer, right-click, and choose “Open Command Window Here”. One method is shorter and harder, while the other is easier and slower. Take your pick.
- Type the following command in your MS-DOS window:
qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP3 with IE6.vhd" -O vmdk IE6-XP.vmdk
Note that “XP SP3 with IE6.vhd” is the path to the IE6 VPC file you downloaded, while “IE6-XP.vmdk” is the new file that VMWare Fusion will use.
- Wait. This will probably take 5-10 minutes.
Configuring the VM
- Move the new
.vmdkfile to your Mac. - Open VMWare Fusion (or shutdown the Windows VM you may already have running) and click
File > New. - Go through the wizard and when you get to the “Virtual Hard Disk” page, expand “Advanced disk options”, check “Use an existing virtual disk” and use the dropdown to find the new
.vmdkimage you just copied back to your Mac. - Finish the wizard and start it! If prompted to upgrade the virtual hard drive, click “Yes.”
Installing the drivers and VMWare Tools
- With VMWare Fusion running, download and decompress vmware_xpsp3_drivers.tar.gz. Copy all of the resulting files to
c:\windows\system32\drivers. Make sure you install these BEFORE the VMware tools! - Download vmware_mouse.reg and double-click it to load its settings into the Windows registry. VMware doesn’t correctly overwrite these setting upon install of the VMware tools, and the mouse can start doing wonky things. These registry settings fix it.
- In VMware, click
Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools. - Follow the instructions. If Windows asks for additional drivers, point it to
c:\windows\system32\drivers. - Make sure that you shutdown the VM and configure your memory (etc.) settings appropriately.
Comment by Nick 26 Jan 2009 at 7:12 pm
Thanks for the walk through. I tried it with the latest IE7/XP image and it works OK. One thing though, I had to burn your drivers to a CD so that the windows vm could see it because you can’t browse the internet or shared folders before you install the vmware tools.
Comment by 
Ryan Parman 1 May 2009 at 11:04 am
I’ll post some pre-converted, ready-to-go images as soon as Microsoft updates their images. Hopefully this should happen within the next day or two, but we’ll see.
Comment by orangechicken 13 May 2009 at 10:10 pm
There seems to be a problem with the TARs. There’s a strange character in the paths and Unarchiver first asks you to choose an encoding and then eventually fails while unpacking the vmdk.
Do they unpack neatly for you? (I’ve tried downloading them a couple times just to make sure it wasn’t caused by a transfer error).
The strange paths are similar to this (hope it keeps the characters): ./ie6_xpsp3/IE6.vmwarevm/Applications/Zone Datafile â?? IE6.app/
Comment by orangechicken 13 May 2009 at 10:47 pm
Using tar from the command line lead to a successful extraction but I couldn’t open vmwarevm. I had to create a new vm based on the disk in the extracted vm. But it worked… so that’s handy.
I appreciate your work converting and packaging these (even if it wasn’t 100% smooth – still lots less work for me 
Comment by 
Chris Mackintosh 29 May 2009 at 6:50 am
WOW! Thanks for the pre-converted files man! Works great.
Pingback by Onze browser testing setup in detail uitgelegd « Netlash Designers 4 Jun 2009 at 2:27 am
[...] IE6, IE7 en IE8 VMWare fusion images [...]
Pingback by Ryan Parman - Flailing Wildly - Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMware Fusion on Mac OS X « Netcrema - creme de la social news via digg + delicious + stumpleupon + reddit 4 Jun 2009 at 8:50 am
[...] Ryan Parman – Flailing Wildly – Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMware Fusion on …blog.ryanparman.com [...]
Comment by 
Oliver Kavanagh 4 Jun 2009 at 11:57 pm
Good post! Another good way I have found at the moment is..
1. Download the Windows 7 Release Candidate
2. Install this as a disc image in VMWare or Parallels 4
3. This comes pre-installed with IE8 + you can run this in compatibility mode for IE7 testing
4. Install this http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm so you can test in IE6 and then you have all the IE platforms you need in one Windows build.
The Windows 7 release candidate doesn’t run out till next June.
Comment by 
Juan Mendes 11 Jun 2009 at 7:44 am
@Oliver Kavanagh
Your approach of having multiple IEs in one machine is not ideal. The multiple versions of IE still share a number of files so the bugs you’ll see aren’t exactly the same as on a mchine that only has IE6, or 7 or 8. Even IE8 behaves slightly different when in IE7 mode. Since I use windows, I chose to install three separate VirtualBox images, one with each IE. That’s why I think the author’s suggestion is the best option.
Comment by 
xabooth 23 Jun 2009 at 12:57 pm
Thanks for this, much appreciated-
I used to use crossover to test ie6 as well as multiple IE’s, but as you said, it’s sketchy. Thanks again.
Pingback by Ryan Parman - Flailing Wildly – Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VirtualBox on Mac OS X 30 Jun 2009 at 8:33 pm
[...] you’ve not yet read the related post, “Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMWare Fusion on Mac OS X,” you should. This is a follow up on how to take those virtual machines (which we’ve [...]
Comment by xllewellyn 8 Jul 2009 at 1:48 am
thanks for the pre-formatted images!
if you are interested, I can upload these images to rapidshare and give you the links for your users. Just in case you are having bandwidth limititations although looks like a fast server, this stuff is downloading at 2mb/s)
thanks again!
Comment by Ryan Parman 8 Jul 2009 at 8:34 am
Actually, I’m serving these from Amazon CloudFront, so I’m not too worried about the bandwidth, but thanks for the offer!
Pingback by adoption curve dot net » Blog Archive » links for 2009-08-06 6 Aug 2009 at 4:08 pm
[...] Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMware Fusion on Mac OS X – Ryan Parman "By now, most front-end web developers have heard of the Standalone Internet Explorers (Wikipedia article). Although these are incredibly useful, they’ve always been hacky at best. [...]
Comment by nelson chen 21 Aug 2009 at 12:50 am
1) Download Image of choice.
2) Rename exe to .rar
3) Use MacPar Deluxe to unrar (it’s a frontend to unrar so you don’t have to deal with the scary terminal)
4) Install Virtualbox
5) Add the VHD that was unrared as the drive to VB.
6) Setup a WinXP guest using that VHD.
7) Boot
when you get to the big notepad eula, mash alt f4.
9) install the additions and reboot. It’s fully working now.
these instructions are for the cheap mac user (oxymoron) who doesn’t have another WinXP install, nor VMWare Fusion.
Comment by Benson Lee 31 Aug 2009 at 2:28 pm
Ryan, thanks again for the updated images. Sure saved me a bunch of time!
I got the notice today that they are expiring 
when I fired up my IE 8 image. Have you updated your images?
Comment by Ryan Parman 31 Aug 2009 at 2:34 pm
Not yet. I haven’t used them in a couple of weeks. I’ll try to get them updated this week, but you can always follow this tutorial in the meantime if you’re in a rush.
Comment by Mrm Tester 1 Sep 2009 at 7:21 am
the windows drivers and mouse.reg are invaluable, thanks so much for posting them. i’ve used the IE images in vmware like this for some time now, but it was always the drivers that caused the headaches afterwards.
also, has anyone tried with the latest images (expire Jan, 10, 2010)? i just tried for IE6, 7 and 8. no problems with the drivers, but all of the sudden each install is asking me to activate windows. it will not boot the OS without activation (asking for a key).
Pingback by Bookmarks for August 12th through September 3rd at Ed Smiley’s Blog 3 Sep 2009 at 7:11 pm
[...] Run Internet Explorer 6 (or IE7, or IE8) images in VMware Fusion on Mac OS X – Ryan Parman – Because of that, we need to go the long way. We’ll download the “officially sanctioned” VirtualPC images containing a time-limited version of Windows XP SP3 and Internet Explorer 6.0, and then we’ll convert these images to the kind that work with VMware Fusion (which works on Mac OS X). This should only need to be done every 3 or 4 months when the images expire. [...]
Comment by Chris Mackintosh 9 Sep 2009 at 4:01 am
@Mrm Tester Yeah, I’m getting the same activation warning with the new mages as well.
Comment by Oleg 13 Jan 2009 at 3:22 pm
Thanks for the great walk through, I can actually follow the steps without getting confused, but to my disappointment I’ve installed a new version of windows, which I assume will not be any more memory efficient then running a copy of windows with multipleIE installed.
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