As it was said before (I don't remember if it was in this list),
although Virtual PC is free now, OSs for it aren't. Besides RAM you
also need quite a lot of disk space, if you want to have several
versions of IE working as they should, each in his own Virtual PC
instance. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Assuming most web developers on Windows are using XP Pro, you can have
as many XP Pro VPCs as you want without requiring additional licenses.
One additional OS, say Win2K, would serve to run as a VPC for IE5.x.
A professional web developer would also tend to have a modern
computer, which would tend to have at least 1GB RAM and a large hard
drive. We're talking "tools of the trade", as it were. The RAM used by
VPC is only used when you are running the VPC. We use VPC only to run
beta software. Our offices are set up with dedicated machines to run
testing browsers in environments similar to what real users would be
doing. That is, we run IE5.0 and IE5.5 on Windows 98SE and Win2K
machines, respectively. Actually, the hardest browser to test, in
terms of infrastructure, is Safari. Since Safari updates are OS
dependent, our offices run 3 Macs... 1 Jaguar, 1 Panther, and 1 Tiger.
This is a far bigger problem than IE ever was :-)
That said, for a young, a new, a hobby developer, or someone with a
very limited budget, standalone IE might be the only option. If that;s
the case, I would urge a careful deployment, along with the attendant
registry hacks to fix version identification issues. But I'd also
consider at least one additional testing machine, as an industry
requirement with the same priorities as a young business manager
needing to invest in a couple of nice suits :-)
--
Al Sparber
PVII
http://www.projectseven.com
"Designing with CSS is sometimes like barreling down a crumbling
mountain road at 90 miles per hour secure in the knowledge that
repairs are scheduled for next Tuesday".
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