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Possible Duplicate:
How do you install MSIE7 in Windows 7?

I need to install Internet Explorer 7 on my Windows 7 machine. How can this be done?

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  • What additional/alternative functionality do you need from installing IE7? I only ask as there may be an easier workaround.
    – Kez
    Aug 30, 2009 at 10:13
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    I assume the asker needs IE7 for web application testing purposes... right?
    – Yuval
    Aug 30, 2009 at 12:04
  • I couldn't see any other reason. IE8 has better standards capabilities, IE6 has been standardized on by many lazy developers, but IE7 is the red-headed stepchild of the Trident engine family.
    – Chris Charabaruk
    Aug 30, 2009 at 15:41
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    I'm a web developer and need to run tesst on every browser. that's one good reason
    – vsync
    Dec 12, 2009 at 15:25

4 Answers 4

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You can't install Internet Explorer 7 but you can run it inside Internet Explorer 8 (as the rendering engine is bundled) by doing the following (NOTE: This method also works in IE 9):

  1. Open IE8
  2. Open >Tools >Developer Tools
  3. Switch Browser Mode to IE7 and Document Mode to IE7

Alternatively, you can download an installer for every Internet Explorer version from http://finalbuilds.edskes.net/iecollection.htm

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  • This is so cool. now I can also use its superb (relatively speaking) developer debugger
    – vsync
    Sep 2, 2009 at 18:45
  • Just to point out IE 6 does not work correctly on Vista, so is unlikely to work correctly on Windows 7.
    – Macha
    Oct 18, 2009 at 12:49
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    We're in the same boat; unfortunately we've found differences between "real" IE7 and IE8 with DocMode set to IE7, so we've got with multiple VMs.
    – StevenV
    Aug 4, 2011 at 18:34
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    As StevenV said, there are considerable differences. I came here looking for a solution to this question precisely because things were running fine in IE9 with 7's browser and docmode but the actual IE7 was crashing completely.
    – CptAJ
    Aug 15, 2012 at 13:01
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You can't install it natively since Internet Explorer 8 is already part of Windows 7. But you can use the Virtual PC Image supplied by Microsoft for that purpose.

Another option would be to install Internet Explorer 7 within the Virtual XP mode, provided you have at least Windows 7 Professional.

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  • I do have Windows 7 Professional version. I'm a web developer, And working from my computer localhost, so i think that Virtual PC might be a problem for me.
    – vsync
    Aug 30, 2009 at 11:03
  • Where would Virtual PC be a problem for you? I don't quite see it.
    – Joey
    Aug 30, 2009 at 20:09
  • virtual PC is an insulated environment, how can it access it's parent computers' localhost server ?
    – vsync
    Sep 2, 2009 at 18:47
  • You can very likely still access the host computer by name. Just because the VM runs on the host system doens't mean they can't share a network ...
    – Joey
    Sep 2, 2009 at 22:40
  • from the readme.txt: "This image will expire on February 14, 2013"
    – Homer
    Mar 25, 2013 at 16:59
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While you can't install IE7 on a Windows 7 machine, there's a program called IETester which provides historical versions of the Trident rendering engine (the core of Internet Explorer). IE7 is included as one of those historical versions, so you'll be able to evaluate how a site renders, without needing to actually run IE7 itself.

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    I've found IETester to be extremely inconsistent in both rendering and JS bugs relative to the actual browsers it purports to let you test, which in my opinion is not a useful test.
    – Chris Moschini
    Aug 27, 2012 at 15:40
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To add to Chris Charabaruk's answer, there's also something called MultipleIEs, which accomplishes the same.

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  • yes I was using this program ever since it got out, but no more, because I've stopped supporting IE6 :) good program.
    – vsync
    Dec 12, 2009 at 15:23

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