How do I run Internet Explorer IE6 and IE7 on the same machine?

Well, the official party line at Microsoft is that MSIE7 is a replacement to IE6, so you can't really run both at the same time becaues they'll step on each other's data files. That's why when Internet Explorer 7 was released it was done so not as an optional download but as a system update.

Digging around on the Microsoft site, they do have a pretty interesting alternative for developers, as documented on the IEblog wherein they suggest you download a copy of Virtual PC and a disk image for within VPC that includes WinXP+SP2 and IE6. Coolness. Except, hold on, it is timed to expire out and die on April 1, 2007, which means you'd be downloading dead code. Not good.

The alternative route I took was to go to a site called eVolt.com, where they have a (legal?) standalone downloadable copy of Internet Explorer 6 for the taking: Standalone MSIE6 zip archive.

I created a new folder called

and saved the ZIP download therein, then used Cofee Cup Zip Wizard (free, but darn annoying the way it's plastered with adverts for other Coffee Cup software. Surely there's a better ZIP archive out there?) to unpack the files into that folder:

Let's make this a neat install, however, so click on your START menu then right-click on "Internet Explorer" in the START menu. It'll pop up a menu of options:

Choose "Properties", then click on the "General" tab:

Add a "7" as I have done, so the entry in your START menu is "Internet Explorer 7". Now let's add IE6 Standalone to the same place so it's all nice and organized!

This is actually pretty darn easy, you'll be glad to know.

Just drag the "iexplore.exe" icon from its own Window onto the START button, and keep holding the mouse button down until the START menu actually pops up, at which point you can place it where you want:

Almost done. You'll want to right click on the new entry that says "Shortcut to iexplore", choose "Properties", click on the "General" tab and rename it "Internet Explorer 6".

Now you can run either or both browsers on your system as needed for testing and experimentation:

Cool, eh?

NOTE: Since it's quite probable that the two programs are still sharing data files, however, I would use some caution (and perhaps a good backup) before I bookmarked or otherwise saved internal state in IE6. As always, reliable backups are a good thing!