Lunatic Notes

Installing Multiple Versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer

Now you might think why the heck would I want to install different versions of web browsers to my computer? Here’s why: you’re a web developer.

Granted, you have the need to check your website/web app in popular browsers: Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 1, 2, 3, Chrome, Safari and Opera. Installing Chrome, Safari and Opera is a no-brainer, but those multiple versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox can be tricky. Here’s how we can do it.

Note: in this article I am using Windows XP with IE6 as a default browser. If you’re on Vista and you already have IE 7 installed you can skip the IE7 installation section.

Before we start, these are the installers we’re going to need. Don’t worry if you don’t have it yet, we will discuss about where (and how) to get them as we go.

Installing Internet Explorer 6 and 7

First we’re going to install IE7, this is also a no-brainer. Get it here and experience Microsoft’s long-ass installation and an unnecessary restart. Done and done with IE7, now we’re going to setup IE6. Download the Multiple IE installer, it’s free and it’s superuseful :)

Run the installer and keep going next until you see a checkbox selection like this:

If your target audience includes the good old Windows 98, 95 and Windows 3.1.1 users then definitely select them all. If that’s not the case then just leave it all unclicked except Internet Explorer 6.

Installing Firefox 1.5, 2 and 3

Thanks to this article, installing these browsers can be done easily. First you have to get all Firefox installers. Firefox 3 can be downloaded from this link, Firefox 2 here and Firefox 1.5 here.

I’d start with Fx 3 because that’s my favorite. Do a custom installation, choose where you want to install Firefox 3. In my case I want to install it here:

Next we’ll launch Firefox Profile Manager. This part’s a bit tricky so let’s pay extra attention here. What we’re going to do is we go to the Mozilla Firefox start menu folder by right-clicking the shortcut on the start menu.

Then we’re going into the duplicated shortcut’s properties by right-clicking the shortcut and select Properties. These are the values you’re going to change: in the Target field, add the following string: -profilemanager.

Rename the shortcut to Profile Manager and launch it. We will need to create 3 different profiles for each Firefox installation. Here are my Firefox Profiles:

Now you can install Fx 2 and 1.5 with custom installation, just remember to change the install directory. Your installation directory should look similar to what I have on the left side screenshot. We’re almost there, it’s a pretty long journey but we’re getting there.

Hang on.

Next step is the finishing strike. We’re going to put all the application shortcut to one place and modify the target just like we modify it on the Profile Manager section up there.

Here’s what we do, we add this string to the target field: -p “Fx 1″ where Fx 1 is the profile we made for that version of Firefox. Take a look at this screenshot for an example.

Et voila! That’s it! Now you have 3 Firefox installations running with different profiles. This means they can have different passwords saved, different bookmarks and so on. Please take a note that you can only run one Firefox instance at a time.

Have fun developing your website! :)

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