[jasonlotito]

It's not really difficult at all to test.

MS provides the virtual machines free of charge, and VirtualBox is free as well. That's everything you need to run and test in IE, from IE6 to IE9 right now.

[devth]

If you want to test multiple versions of IE, you need to do some time intensive VM cloning to trick VirtualBox into thinking they're actually separate images. Then configure and install IE's debugger tools for each image. Then, when the VMs expire in a few months repeat that process.

Add to that the problem of VMs booting slow, running slow, and consuming tons of memory on my otherwise-fast dev machine.

[jasonlotito]

> If you want to test multiple versions of IE, you need to do some time intensive VM cloning to trick VirtualBox into thinking they're actually separate images.

No, you don't. You just run different images. Downloaded from MS. I have them installed. Right now. IE7, IE8, IE9. IE9 is currently running. Even still, for the most part, IE9 makes debugging easy, as you can run in IE7 and IE8 mode. That takes care of the rest of the problems I've faced.

Yes, testing in IE sucks. It's not an enjoyable experience, but it also doesn't take much effort.

> Then configure and install IE's debugger tools for each image.

This is not an issue. You make this sound like it takes a lot of work. It's not.

> Add to that the problem of VMs booting slow, running slow, and consuming tons of memory on my otherwise-fast dev machine.

I'm running this on a MacBook Air. Yes, they aren't lightning fast, but they are usable for debugging purposes.

> Then, when the VMs expire in a few months repeat that process.

That's not true, either. I've been using my IE7 one, for example, since October.

[base698]

I used to have a beast of a machine with a VM for IE6 - 9. It was super easy to test all of them simultaneously.

In modern times however, I think when we try to support IE it will be 9 and higher. It's not that it's too much work, rather that IE 8 and lower users are hurting the internet.