Running IE on the Mac


Recommended Posts

Hey Guys,

So it looks Wine development on making IE run properly on Mac OS X has pretty much stalled. I was wondering if anybody else has found any good methods for getting IE running natively on OS X?

I currently have to run a Windows 7 VM on my MacBook Pro at work JUST to access our CRM, and it's quite messy.

Following on from this request, does anybody know of any ways to have Dynamics CRM load properly on a Mac Web Browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari?).

Thanks

Chris

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you tried installing IE8 in Wine?

I'm not sure how well it works though. Might work well enough to do what you want :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bugger :/ You are right though Internet Explorer development on wine has stalled. Nobody seems to care anymore :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.browserstack.com not free and pricing sucks.

Wow that's rather expensive just to use Internet Explorer. Good idea, but still.....

I'm sure it can be done, but internet explorer appears to be the last program on people's minds at the moment. I mean they got Office 2010 working in wine, but can't get Internet Explorer working :s

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I currently have to run a Windows 7 VM on my MacBook Pro at work JUST to access our CRM, and it's quite messy.

It's probably a lot cleaner than any other solution. Things like Wine and others spread all kinds of crap throughout your OS X installation. From my experience it's by far the best to just run Windows as a guest PC and keep everything neatly contained.

Personally I have no issues with running Windows 8 as a guest on my iMac. But then again I have a 3,4 GHz Core i7 and 16 GB of memory at my disposal. :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow that's rather expensive just to use Internet Explorer. Good idea, but still.....

I'm sure it can be done, but internet explorer appears to be the last program on people's minds at the moment. I mean they got Office 2010 working in wine, but can't get Internet Explorer working :s

what you get for your money is pretty sweet, but it's just one of those things you don't really want to pay for, especially at a monthly fee and it's not cheap either..

I gave up trying to run IE on a mac and now use an old laptop running windows 7 with a VM to XP, and i have every possible browser combination on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.browserstack.com not free and pricing sucks.

Good idea, this led me to load up a Server 2008 R2 box on one of our HyperV Servers and setup RemoteApp. No way am I configuring a tunnel back to our network :D.

Bugger :/ You are right though Internet Explorer development on wine has stalled. Nobody seems to care anymore :(

I'm sure it can be done, but internet explorer appears to be the last program on people's minds at the moment. I mean they got Office 2010 working in wine, but can't get Internet Explorer working

Yeah exactly; I know IE is an awful awful browser compared to Webkit / Gecko browsers, but still, MS crap needs MS crap.

It's probably a lot cleaner than any other solution. Things like Wine and others spread all kinds of crap throughout your OS X installation. From my experience it's by far the best to just run Windows as a guest PC and keep everything neatly contained.

Personally I have no issues with running Windows 8 as a guest on my iMac. But then again I have a 3,4 GHz Core i7 and 16 GB of memory at my disposal. :p

We'll I'm running this on a Retina Book with 8GB, runs more than fast enough but sometimes the Integration isn't very clean. (Copy pasta doesn't work sometimes).

what you get for your money is pretty sweet, but it's just one of those things you don't really want to pay for, especially at a monthly fee and it's not cheap either..

I gave up trying to run IE on a mac and now use an old laptop running windows 7 with a VM to XP, and i have every possible browser combination on them.

I'd do something similar if this was Development work, but simply to run a SINGLE WebApp, it's not worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Parallels with a Windows 7/8 x86 installation, it'll also install a plugin to Safari, so a IE button appears next to the Cloud tabs button, so you can easily view pages in IE, without starting it manually.

Also you can run the program's externally, so you don't need to manage it within the VM window.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Parallels with a Windows 7/8 x86 installation, it'll also install a plugin to Safari, so a IE button appears next to the Cloud tabs button, so you can easily view pages in IE, without starting it manually.

Also you can run the program's externally, so you don't need to manage it within the VM window.

Correct, but this still brings me to the same issue I have right now, which is running an entire OS to accomplish one task.

In case anyone is not aware Microsoft provides images for testing IE in virtual machine for free

http://www.microsoft...s.aspx?id=11575

Yep, but these are for Development, not for Production. The licences will not extend into a Business Environment and I'd still have the same issue I originally had.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Said by +CPressland:

"Yeah exactly; I know IE is an awful awful browser compared to Webkit / Gecko browsers, but still, MS crap needs MS crap."

I beg to differ on that opinion, but then again, just like a**holes, everyone has one!! ;)

Sure must suck to have that expensive a** Mac and can't use something that the vast majority of the rest of the world has installed by default?

I've debated a few times on getting a Mac, but then I would be in almost the same boat you're in now, which is why I even clicked the link to this topic and why I haven't gotten a Mac.

Sorry, no help!! :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Correct, but this still brings me to the same issue I have right now, which is running an entire OS to accomplish one task

Weird, I never had any copy/paste issues between my OS X host and VMware Fusion guest PC... :/

One way or another you'll gonna have to need Windows. Either virtualized, native, secondary computer, Remote Desktop or otherwise... Since Internet Explorer isn't a native OS X app you're never going to find a 100% "clean" solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Said by +CPressland:

"Yeah exactly; I know IE is an awful awful browser compared to Webkit / Gecko browsers, but still, MS crap needs MS crap."

I beg to differ on that opinion, but then again, just like a**holes, everyone has one!! ;)

Sure must suck to have that expensive a** Mac and can't use something that the vast majority of the rest of the world has installed by default?

I've debated a few times on getting a Mac, but then I would be in almost the same boat you're in now, which is why I even clicked the link to this topic and why I haven't gotten a Mac.

Sorry, no help!! :(

Just to reiterate, I'm using IE9 no problem right now inside a VM, I'd just like to lower the load.

Weird, I never had any copy/paste issues between my OS X host and VMware Fusion guest PC... :/

One way or another you'll gonna have to need Windows. Either virtualized, native, secondary computer, Remote Desktop or otherwise... Since Internet Explorer isn't a native OS X app you're never going to find a 100% "clean" solution.

Like I said, the solution was to use one of my LAB Servers to run a Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 VM with IE9 setup as a Remote App.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.