run-ie-7-8-9-virtualbox-on-osx.txt

# the admin password for all of the IE VMs is “Password1″ without the quotes, it's also used for the password hints

1) Install VirtuaBox on your mac

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.10/VirtualBox-4.1.10-76795-OSX.dmg

2) Decide which versions of Internet Explorer you want to download and install – each version of Internet Explorer is contained within a separate virtual machine that runs within VirtualBox. In other words, if you want to run Internet Explorer 7, 8, and 9, you will need to download three separate VM’s, which may take a while so keep that in mind. Select the text below and copy it:

# Install ALL versions of Internet Explorer: IE 7, IE 8, and IE 9 (for now this script will also pull down a IE 6 vm with windows xp)

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | bash

# Install Internet Explorer 7 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="7" bash

# Install Internet Explorer 8 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="8" bash

# Install Internet Explorer 9 Only

curl -s https://raw.github.com/xdissent/ievms/master/ievms.sh | IEVMS_VERSIONS="9" bash 

# Launch VirtualBox and boot Windows & Internet Explorer – select the virtual machine corresponding to the version of Internet Explorer you intend to use: IE7, IE8, IE9, then click on the “Start” button to boot that Windows machine with that version of Internet Explorer. 

# VM Snapshots Circumvent Microsofts 30 Day Limitation
The other great thing about this method is that it circumvents Microsofts 30 day limitation by utilizing snapshots, a feature built into VirtualBox. This preserves the original Windows VM state and allows you to continuously use the IE virtual machine without any time limitation simply by reverting to the original snapshot once the 30 day lock occurs.

# To use a snapshot after the 30 day Windows expiration, just open VirtualBox, select the IE VM, and click on the “Snapshots” button. From here you can boot from the original snapshot that was created and use IE again for another 30 days. You can do this indefinitely, effectively having a clean IE test environment forever.