As an open-source project, xdissent/ievms has picked up 9.8k stars on GitHub (Shell). Automated installation of the Microsoft IE App Compat virtual machines
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Microsoft provides virtual machine disk images to facilitate website testing
in multiple versions of IE, regardless of the host operating system.
With a single command, you can have IE6, IE7, IE8,
IE9, IE10, IE11 and MSEdge running in separate virtual machines.
The OVA images are massive and can take hours or tens of minutes to
download, depending on the speed of your internet connection. You might want
to start the install and then go catch a movie, or maybe dinner, or both.
Recovering from a failed installation
Each version is installed into ~/.ievms/ (or INSTALL_PATH). If the installation fails
for any reason (corrupted download, for instance), delete the appropriate ZIP/ova file
and rerun the install.
If nothing else, you can delete ~/.ievms (or INSTALL_PATH) and rerun the install.
Specifying the install path
To specify where the VMs are installed, use the INSTALL_PATH variable:
A full installation will download roughly 12.5G of data.
NOTE: Reusing the XP VM for IE7 and IE8 (the default) saves an incredible
amount of space and bandwidth. If it is disabled (REUSE_XP=no) the disk space
required climbs to 95G (49G if cleaned post-install) and around 22G will be
downloaded. Reusing the Win7 VM on the other hand (also the default), saves
tons of bandwidth but pretty much breaks even on disk space. Disable it with
REUSE_WIN7=no.
Features
Clean Snapshot
A snapshot is automatically taken upon install, allowing rollback to the
pristine virtual environment configuration. Anything can go wrong in
Windows and rather than having to worry about maintaining a stable VM,
you can simply revert to the clean snapshot to reset your VM to the
initial state.
Guest Control
VirtualBox guest additions are installed after each virtual machine is created
(and before the clean snapshot) and the appropriate steps are taken to enable
guest control from the host machine.
Resuming Downloads
If one of the comically large files fails to download, the curl
command used will automatically attempt to resume where it left off.
Unfortunately, the modern.IE download servers do not support resume.
Reusing XP VMs
IE7 and IE8 ship from MS on Vista and Win7 respectively. Both of these
images are far larger than the IE6 XP image, which also technically supports
IE7 and IE8. To save bandwidth, space and time, ievms will reuse
(duplicate) the IE6 XP VM image for both. Virtualbox guest control is used
to run the appropriate IE installer within the VM. The clean snapshot
includes the updated browser version.
NOTE: If you'd like to disable XP VM reuse for IE7 and IE8, set the
environment variable REUSE_XP to anything other than yes:
Currently there exists a bug in
VirtualBox (or possibly elsewhere) that disables guest control after a Windows 8
virtual machine's state is saved. To better support guest control and to
eliminate yet another image download, ievms will re-use the IE9 Win7 image for
IE10 and IE11 by default. In addition, the Win7 VMs are the only ones which can
be successfully "rearmed" to extend the activation period.
NOTE: If you'd like to disable Win7 VM reuse for IE10, set the environment
variable REUSE_WIN7 to anything other than yes:
NOTE: It is currently impossible to install IE11 without reusing the
Win7 virtual machine.
Control ISO
Microsoft's XP image uses a blank password for the IEUser, which disallows
control via Virtualbox's guest control by default. Changing a value in the
Windows registry enables guest control, but requires accessing the VM's hard
drive. A solution is to boot the VM with a special boot CD image which attaches
the hard disk and edits the registry. A custom linux build has been created
based on the ntpasswd bootdisk which
makes the required registry edits and simply powers off the machine. The ievms
script may then use Virtualbox guest controls to manage the VM.
The control ISO is built within a Vagrant Ubuntu VM.
If you'd like to build it yourself, clone the ievms repository, install
Vagrant and run vagrant up. The base ntpasswd boot disk will be downloaded,
unpacked and customized within the Vagrant VM. A custom linux kernel is
cross-compiled for the image as well.
Acknowledgements
modern.IE - Provider of IE VM images.
ntpasswd - Boot disk starting point
and registry editor.
regit-config - Minimal Virtualbox
kernel config reference.
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How active is development on xdissent/ievms?
The most recent commit recorded on xdissent/ievms was 6.5 years ago, based on the GitHub push timestamp. The repository has 482 forks — one of the better signals of community interest.
How many stars does xdissent/ievms have?
xdissent/ievms has 9.8k GitHub stars — refresh the page for the live number, or check github.com/xdissent/ievms. TopGit mirrors GitHub's count but does not claim minute-by-minute accuracy.
Is xdissent/ievms open source?
TopGit's metadata for xdissent/ievms does not record a license. Most public repositories on GitHub ARE open source, but the exact terms vary — verify by opening the LICENSE file directly.
Where can I see xdissent/ievms in action?
The project maintains a homepage at http://xdissent.github.com/ievms. The README tab on this page also usually contains screenshots and a quickstart.
Where do I read more about xdissent/ievms?
This TopGit page is a snapshot — the READ ME tab shows the project's own README content (links stripped, images preserved). The GitHub repository at github.com/xdissent/ievms is the definitive source.
Read full README in the tab above.
Is ievms worth your time?
ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can all read this page. Ask one of them what it makes of ievms.
/ievms