Internet Explorer 6 and 7 working on Vista

Yes folks it does actually work. Originally I had thought that once you upgraded to IE7 it was inevitable that you were going to do a full un-install before getting to use IE6 to check your browser compatibility when designing websites. Well I am now putting that rumour to bed, cya, gone and bye-bye.

I run two machines when designing, the desktop with XP and IE7 and Firefox and my laptop with Vista installed (also IE7 as standard). This then started the problem of not being able to check the compatibility with IE6. I found myself trawling the internet trying to find a right way of doing it but always coming to a dead end with Vista forcing you to stop.

How to install IE6 onto Vista

The idea is to not actually install it on your machine, you simply install it on a virtual machine. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 has been made available to download free here. You then need to download the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image from here and extract the files to a location on your computer.

Launch the Virtual PC and go through the installation procedure, when it comes to ‘use an existing HDD browse for you VPC Image‘ and carry on with the setup. I chose to run IE6 on XP and bumped the amount of RAM up due to the laptop having 2gb worth so I had some to spare.

At the bottom of the Virtual PC window you will find a few icons, if you are having trouble connecting to the internet like I did, right click on the networking icon, then choose Shared Network connection.

This same process can be used to use IE6 on your XP based machine when you have already upgraded to IE7.

25th of August saw my Birthday come and go and it was the greatest! Jen went and bought me an Xbox 360 Premium with 3 games;

• Gears of War
• Crackdown
• Forza 2

I had played Gears of War before and wasn’t to impressed, seemed a little repetitive and I am sure there will be enough people who have their own opinions on it. Forza 2 is a great game and will over time complete it. I havn’t even touched Crackdown yet but will. I went out to buy Bioshock, Tranformers, Spiderman and Call of Duty 3 since and have had a go at all of them but Bioshock.

Xbox 360: Lie it down or stand it up?

Now here is the thing, when the PS2 came out people complained that it used to scratch the discs when being stood up on it’s end. Then microsoft go out and make the 360 which can also be stood on it’s end.

Rolled up with all of the “red lights of death” and the problems with them over heating, which is better? I think I will keep mine stood up on it’s end but heavily cooled if I can and out of direct sunlight when it is being used. I havn’t noticed any problems with it so far and hopefully won’t in the future.

Oh yeah, I am on Xbox Live also so if anyone wants to add me my gamertag is “Maugantias”.