Should I install IE8 on XP?

I would install IE8, as people already using IE7 will soon make the switch, simply because they will also be told by XP (and it's free of course!)..

However, you will still need to find ways of testing on IE7 & 6, as people will still be using these. IE7 is still buggy when it comes to css, and IE6 just about useless!

Perhaps use a second, cheap computer? Or make a small partition just big enough to house the different operating systems?

Thank you for your advice.

I have just discovered IE Tester here: http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage

Any experience with it?

Hi,
I don't have any expereience with it, but have just bookmarked it to look at later - looks a handy tool to me..
Well done for finding it..

There is an option in IE 8 to switch to IE 7 rendering mode. I forget what it's called now... they changed it since the beta version. (Apparently this mode isn't exactly the same as IE 7. It's probably close enough for my purposes... IE 7 usually isn't much of a problem compared to IE6).

There are ways that you can install IE6 as a stand-alone. Try this:

http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

If you're on Linux or Mac you can try IEs4Linux/IEs4Mac respectively

My experience is not as happy as Megan's. I had multiple IEs installed, and it was a very good test platform. After installing IE 8 the multiple IEs did not work. I also read about several instances where IE 8 "compatibility mode" differs from the way IE 7 works.

Not being able to test in older versions of IE is a serious drawback for me. So I uninstalled IE 8 to get IE 7 back. Now the multiple IEs seem to work - but the version vector is broken, and conditional comments identify all versions as IE 8 !!! Bah!

Thanks for raising this issue, Tochiro. If anyone else can advise, I'd love to hear from you.