Run IE on your Intel Mac, if you absolutely have to

If you're a Mac-based web developer, a sysadmin at SomeBigCo, or an Outlook Web Access user, you might find yourself needing to use MS Internet Explorer from time to time. No, not IE for Mac OS X, frozen in amber within Applications folders around the globe; I mean IE for Windows, the hairy scary Active-X enabled browser that for better or worse represents a huge chunk of the web-surfing world.

Getting 'real' IE on the Mac, up until now, has meant OS emulation (Virtual PC), virtualization (Parallels/VMware), API translation (Wine/CrossOver) or remote access (RDC). Now there's another option for Intel Mac owners: ies4osx, a Mac port of the ies4linux package. Built on top of the Darwine version of the Wine Win32 API translation layer, ies4osx downloads and installs an official version of IE (you pick from v5, 5.5, 6 or 7) and then runs it inside the X11 environment on your Mac.

The resulting browser looks a little weird -- almost like a Bizarro version of IE, with the slightly altered type and menu look of the X11 windowing system -- but this bear can dance. OWA runs nicely, with full rich-text editing and message search, and the administration pages for MS Virtual Server also work pretty well. I wouldn't depend on ies4osx in a production role, at least not with the current build, but for one-off testing of websites in IE it's worth the (free) download. The ies4linux developer plans to roll the Mac-specific fixes back into the main package, so the next version of ies4 will probably support both Mac and Linux users from the same codebase.

[via MacApper]

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Source: http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

If you're a Mac-based web developer, a sysadmin at SomeBigCo, or an Outlook Web Access user, you might find yourself needing to use MS...

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Michele Fishman

I installed darwine and ie 6 and 7 my only problem is that I can't see what I type lots of blank spaces in the menus. Anybody else have this problem? I have 2 ghz dual core intel with 10.4.11

February 04 2008 at 11:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jim Demers

I installed Darwine and then ies4osx, per instructions, and created the IE6 application on the desktop, also per instructions. But IE6 failed to launch; I got one bounce of the icon in the dock, and that was that.

Out of desperation, I copied the IE6 application into the Sample WineLib applications folder, and voila! It works! I'm on this site, entering this text, in the IE6 window. I have no rational explanation for this, but I offer it up to befuddled users as a possible fix. I should note that permissions and user passwords were demanded before the file could be copied, and that may be a factor in making this "fix" work.

December 17 2007 at 11:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Jim Demers's comment

Jim Demers

Failed to mention: this was under Leopard (OS 10.5.1), on a Core 2 Duo iMac.

December 18 2007 at 12:05 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

grayshockley

Have any of you tried OmniWeb spoofing IE?

I've had very good luck with it.

December 04 2007 at 1:12 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Chris

Will the Netflix Watch Now work on MAC with this?

December 03 2007 at 2:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Chris's comment

Michael Rose

Signs point to 'no' for Netflix. WMP is not part of the package, so I doubt any media apps will work.

December 03 2007 at 7:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Michael Rose

Bon -- OWA runs in "reach client" mode (called "OWA Light" in Exchange 2007) in any browser except IE. It's not the same application -- see http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/code/OWA/index.html

Richard -- the PPC version of Darwine, bundled with the QEMU emulator, probably isn't capable of running IE. You could try though. http://darwine.sourceforge.net/download.php

December 03 2007 at 7:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Michael Rose's comment

Richard

Well, thought I let you know, I tried with Darwine for PPC & ie4osx downloads the cab's exe, etc. but failes on the install.

Ah well better luck next time if their is any time left for us PPCers.

December 03 2007 at 7:24 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Bon

Just FYI: You don't need IE to run OWA. OWA works fine in Firefox, Safari and Opera.

December 02 2007 at 8:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Bon's comment

Richard

Being of the poor kind I have an iMac G5 (last one before Intel) does this version work? Or should I roll my own?
Anyone else tried ?

I have both Tiger & Leopard.

I confirm as "Bon" said, I have used Firefox & Safari for Outlook Web Access.

December 03 2007 at 3:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

carlo Righini

i tried the IE6 installation of it on sites that i know and it does NOT replicate IE6 rendering of css exactly.
the extent of this is hard to tell but i wouldnt trust it for making sure your sites look correct in IE6.
hopefully it gets fixed as this solution is potentially far better than having to install windows just to test for buggy IE.
can anyone comment on the linux version - as to its rendering abilities?

December 02 2007 at 6:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jon Crawford

After the install, everything seems to be working great. EXCEPT for the fact that the browser windows will only stay as the top window for about 5 seconds before shrinking back into the inactive state.

This makes it REALLY hard to type anything into the location bar or fill out a form. Any ideas on a fix?

November 30 2007 at 5:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Steve Davidson

Since the source site is currently hammered, you can get the original instructions from google cache. Google for

cache:http://www.kronenberg.org/ies4osx/

For Darwine, you can always go to the source:

http://darwine.sourceforge.net/download.php#

you'll need to click on the "alternate download page" link to get the required version (0.9.49)

November 30 2007 at 3:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Steve Davidson's comment

Steve Davidson

Fonts are a bit screwy with the default installation of Darwine. See this post for a script which fixes this:

http://thisismyinter.net/?p=27

Or, if you prefer to do things the hard way, see this post:

http://thisismyinter.net/?p=23

November 30 2007 at 3:58 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christina Warren

And here's a link to the latest Darwine, if that site is slow:

http://rapidshare.com/files/73401029/Darwine-x86-0.9.49_2.dmg

November 30 2007 at 3:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply