I am testing a website in a VM running Windows Vista IE8 and it runs great. However, a friend mentioned to me that the shopping basket page does not display the “Checkout” button in IE8 for him in Windows XP I am very confused / concerned. This very same button shows up fine for me within Vista running IE8.
Will IE8 run any differently on Windows XP compared to how IE8 runs on Windows Vista?? Aren’t they both running the exact same IE8 rendering engine, regardless of what operating system they are on?
If I should be running VMs with all possible operating system / browser build combinations than please advise.
Here is what I currently have for IE testing:
Windows XP: IE6
Windows Vista: IE7
Windows 7: IE8
Windows 7: IE9
Should I also be running Windows XP: IE7, IE8, IE9?
Windows Vista: IE8, IE9?
(In order to truly test each operating system environment for Internet Explorer?) In the past, I have always thought that having this many VM’s would be a bit excessive, especially since browser testing the same browser in different operating systems has provided the same results. So if someone could explain to me what IE versions will run differently in what Windows OS I would greatly appreciate it. Also, since then I have now included “position:relative !important” in my IE8 css file and it seems to have fixed the button for my friend’s Windows XP IE8. (Even though Windows Vista IE8 displayed it fine without that code!) I just want to add: he was not running Compatibility View within IE8. Does Windows XP force compatibility view for IE8 for some strange reason?
Also, Browser Shots does not quite work for this example because the buttons do not show up until something has been added to the shopping basket page. The IE testing programs seem to fail because they are emulating their environments and are not running the full browser within the program.
Thanks,