MS Windows

Intro

I know there are a lot of articles on the WWW detailing this process but none of them really worked for me.  I recently changed job and no longer have all my test machines at work.  Instead I only have the one workstation :eek  Still I've been asked to test some web applications (???) so I had to find a solution to suit me.  I'd done this before IE7 (so a long time since).

My office workstation setup for this is:

• HP CMT DC7900
• E5300 @ 2.60Ghz
• 2Gb RAM
• Windows XP Professional SP2 
• Internet Explorer 7

As you can tell, not the most up-to-date but unfortunately I need to stay near to my customer base and match their setups as closely as possible.

Objective

My aim is to have IE 8 installed as my Windows browser (I wanted IE7 and the other 2 as standalones but apparently not possible) and then have IE6 and IE7 as separate browsers.  If I was at home I'd just use Virtual PC with Windows7 but my customers are on XP and I have to emulate their environment as accurately as I can which I can do by setting up my work computer to be just like theirs (using the same image, etc).

Programs which I would NOT recommend

I've put a list of programs which I installed and uninstalled just as quickly as they failed to properly reflect IE6 and IE8 features (& bugs?).

• IECollection v1.6.0.6
• Multiple IE Installer v?  (Old and unstable...)
• Browser Sandbox (Need IE and install their plugin - does not reflect my customer's PC image)
• IETester v0.4.3 (Returned different results from my IE7 tests)
• ie6olas_nt (from http://browsers.evolt.org - works but installing IE8 breaks it)
• ie6setup.exe (from Microsoft's website advising on Run > c:\\download\\ie6setup.exe /c:"ie6wzd.exe /d:1 /s:""#E")

If you only want Internet Explorer versions 6 & 7

(Note that installing IE8 will break this)

Possibly the easiest thanks to http://browsers.evolt.org/ who have a version 6 standalone.  Because their site seems to be under construction and links on the WWW are no longer valid, I've uploaded their zip just in case to my own site available for non-registered members at http://www.joellipman.com/features/downloads.html?func=fileinfo&id=12.  

1. Install IE7 from Microsoft's website.
2. Reboot if necessary
3. Navigate to http://browsers.evolt.org 
4. Scroll down to "Internet Explorer - Microsoft"
5. Select Win32 > standalone > ie6eolas_nt.zip
6. Download the ZIP file
7. Scan for threats
8. Decompress/Extract to a folder (by default it will create one separate to the default C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer).
9. Scan for threats
10. Run "C:\Program Files\Internet Exploreriexplore.exe" for IE7
11. Run the "iexplore.exe" program found in the IE6 download to run IE6.

It will return v7 on the "about" dialog but I felt this was because I already had IE7 installed.  Note that a lot of websites have reported that installing IE7 standalone breaks the IE6 standalone and none reported the fix...

If you only want Internet Explorer versions 7 & 8

1. First install Internet Explorer 8 as per usual (from Microsoft's site)
2. Then download and install IE7 Standalone (from http://ie7-standalone.en.softonic.com/)

Your IE7 standalone will return a few errors but for basic browsing it will navigate to other pages and it will identify itself as IE7 to sites that check your browser details (see below - Additional Info)

The Free Virtual PC solution (Requires ISO or WinXP disk)

Go to Microsoft.com and search for Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=28C97D22-6EB8-4A09-A7F7-F6C7A1F000B5&displaylang=en).  

System Requirements: 

Virtual PC 2007 requires a 400 MHz Pentium-compatible processor (1.0 GHz or faster recommended), and requires approximately 35 MB of disk space. It runs on Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) (Enterprise, Business, Ultimate), and Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3).

Creating a Virtual PC:

1. Download & Run the setup.exe
2. Go to Start > Programs > Microsoft Virtual PC
3. In the wizard, select "Create a virtual machine" > Next
4. Name it (eg. Test VirtualPC 001) > Next
5. Select the Operating System (eg. Windows XP) > Next
6. Use the recommended RAM > Next
7. Select "A new virtual hard disk" > Next
8. Specify a virtual hard disk size (eg. 10000 MB which is about 10Gb) > Next
9. Check your attributes and click on "Finish"
10. The Virtual PC Console window should have it selected but click on "Settings" first
11. Select "Hard Disk 1" and run the Virtual Disk Wizard
12. Change it so that the file is not stored in "My Documents" (find somewhere on the C drive or other with space and real disks)
13. It should go about creating a usable virtual hard disk.
14. When it's done click on the small "Start" button below the "Remove" button (not your main Start menu button)
15. As soon as it loads, press DEL to enter the BIOS setup.
16. Navigate to the "Boot" section with the left & right arrow keys
17. Press "Enter" on Boot device priority
18. Press "Enter" on the first boot device
19. Select "CDROM"
20. Press "F10" to save and exit the BIOS.
21. Load your ISO or CD into your CDROM
22. Go to "Action" in the menubar and select "Reset..."

Additional Information

• Taming your multiple IE standalones (http://www.positioniseverything.net/articles/multiIE.html)
• Get your browser details (http://www.iwebtool.com/browser_details)
• Get browser dimensions and plug-in details (http://whatsmy.browsersize.com/ - Only in here cose it's clean)
• Another one (http://my-browser.net/ - shame about the popups)

Thought I'd put something here as a lot of my clients and friends are all surprised by the Aero features and weren't aware that these existed in Windows Vista (and originally from Linux variants).

Sometimes you may only have partial Aero effects. This can be because Windows may not think your machine is powerful enough to run these effects without affecting performance.

If this is happening to you, and you don’t mind about a possible slight slow down on performance you can force enable them -

1. Go to Control Panel -> System and Security -> System
2. Click on advanced system settings on the left and then performance settings.
3. Under the visual effects tab you should see that the option “ Let windows choose what’s best for my computer “ is by default checked.
4. Below it you should see a list of visual effects, some of which will be unchecked if you are not experiencing the full range of Aero features.
5. Select the custom option and then select all the effects from the list below it. Hit apply and ok and you should have all the Aero effects enabled.

Now what are these Aero effects?

Aero Peek:

Aero Peek

What this is it gives you a preview of windows in a thumbnail without actually opening them by simply hovering over the icon in the taskbar. Click on one of them and you will be taken to that window, this also works with tabs in Internet Explorer which is very handy, but unfortunately it doesn’t work in Firefox or Chrome as yet

You can also move your cursor to the lower right corner of your screen to get a preview of your desktop, click and you will be brought to your desktop

Aero Shake:

If you have lots of windows open on your desktop and you only want to look at one, click and hold its window and shake it! All the other windows will minimize, simply shake the window again and all the other windows will restore.

Aero Snap:

One of the most useful features I use in Windows 7, If you click and drag a window up to the top of the screen it will automatically maximise itself. If you have two windows open, and want to view them side by side. Click and drag one to the right edge of the screen and the other to the left. They will both resize automatically to fit the screen

Aero Flip:

Aero Flip 3D

This Aero effect was in Windows Vista but not in XP. Activate it by pressing the windows key () and tab () at the same time. It will give you a 3D effect that will allow you to “Flip” between the different windows. Keep holding the Microsoft Logo key and pressing the Tab key to rotate between the different windows.   As with previous versions of MS Windows, holding down the Alt key and pressing Tab will give you the more traditional window switcher (2D).

Assigning Aero Flip 3D to a shortcut command:

Visit http://www.paraesthesia.com/archive/2010/04/16/fun-with-windows-aero-flip-3d.aspx as this was not my idea but quite ingenious and worth a mention.

• Did anyone else have any problems with Aero effects when they first installed Windows 7?
• What’s your favourite Aero feature or do you even use them?
• Let us know by leaving a comment.

The below worked for me on an old home computer that was running XP which I thought I'd do as I only have 1 licence for Windows 7.  The modifications slow my old desktop down a bit but otherwise quite fun and a sort of consistency in the home network.

Note that this is not my YouTube video.  It was uploaded by user Superpchelp.

I just had to put something here as I have been buying and returning failed/corrupt USB pens.  In the past few months I have been trying to upgrade my 16Gb USB Integral Pen from Play.Com to a 32Gb equivalent.  I use my USB pen as the "My Documents" folder on every computer I use.  It was fine with my 16Gb one but my 32Gb ones have all failed at some point.

I went for a cheap one on Play.com (Verbatim 32Gb@£49.99 & Kingston DataTraveler@?) and an even cheaper one on Ebay.com (Leather 64Gb@£29.99).  In hindsight, the Ebay one was obviously going to fail (faking the disk size).

I got badgered by my colleagues to splash out and get a worthwhile pen.  Aside from some other failures, I decided to get the bulletproof, waterproof, fireproof, shockproof 32Gb USB Pretec Pen (as advertised by Gadget Show on Five.tv).  Turns out this is an incredibly fragile pen. If files are being written to it and it gets nudged, this will corrupt the pen.  BTW I don't use the "remove device safely" rubbish as my old pen never did and it was fine for over a year.  The default setup in windows XP is that it doesn't need it.

Bulletproof, waterproof, fireproof, shockproof BUT NOT joe-proof! ...

I'm using windows 7 and my day-job machines tend to be windows xp.  I found this solution on a windows xp machine so if the error happens again, I'll try fixing it on my windows 7 setup and update this article.

I found someone else on the Internet who doesn’t use the “remove device safely” blab and he got the same error. He (unless Andy is a girls name) posted to a forum which was even more useless asking him about a write-protect switch (physical). The user then said nevermind and found the answer himself.  The discussion is on the page http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/46202/.

The chap went to www.apacer.com which is just where I’ve been trawling through and I have found a utility that actually works on my pen!!! It said “repaired USB pen” and when I go to check the space, my 30Gb has returned!!! It’s called Urescue and it’s become my favourite program (despite the fact that I want to need to use it as little as possible, i.e. once)!!! 

To find it go to http://emea.apacer.com/en/support/downloads.asp then search for “AH128 Handy Steno Repair Tool” released in 2010 and should be about 3.57Mb).

I have tried other rescue programs which caused even more errors (had to return the pen for another and another) as well as the common USB disk storage format tools for Windows.  Note that any data on the USB pen is automatically lost, and that if you use rescue programs, you may corrupt the pen in such that a way that you would need to return it to the manufacturer.