You can install several different versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer concurrently on Windows. Finally I could see how awful my site looked in IE5 — and the truth wasn’t pretty.
You can download standalone versions of Internet Explorer 3, 4, 5, 5.5 and 6 from the browser archive at evolt.org.
Update: The different versions of IE share their configuration and tend to look the same — only the internals are different (rendering, Javascript, etc.) — so it can be difficult to tell them apart. In fact, if you have IE6 installed, then the “About Internet Explorer” menu item always shows version 6, even if you’re actually running a different version.
I have seen a method of changing the IE title bar to include the version number. I didn’t like this because you had to download a hacked DLL and edit the registry: call me paranoid. Here’s a much simpler way, using a bookmarklet.
Just drag the following bookmarklet to your Internet Explorer Links bar:
Whenever you need to know the version of IE you’re running, just click your new Version button. Quick and easy.
Is there a way to tell which version is running?
I’ve updated the article to include a simple way of differentiating your Internet Explorer versions.
Heh, I just hit that javascript link in Firefox 1.5.0.7 and it came back saying I was running 5.0… Maybe Mozilla version?
You’ll get more useful information by using ‘navigator.userAgent’ rather than ‘appVersion’.
nice tools for testing the website …
add firefox!
Remember, this bookmarklet is useful only for differentiating which version of IE you are running. If you want more detailed information then you’ll probably want to use some other method.