Tuesday, April 18, 2006

MS: How to Run Internet Explorer 7.0 BETA Without Installing It

If you want to test IE7 without the risk of installing a beta software, here is a simple way to do it. This method does not install IE 7 the usual way- instead you just run it from the installer package and hence your system does not get littered with beta dlls all over the place.

1. Download IE7 beta from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/default.mspx. Save the file at a location from where you want to run it. For example C:\IE7Beta
2. Right click the file and select "Extract Here" option from the Winzip/WinRAR context menu.
3. Once all the files are extracted, find the file named "shlwapi.dll" and delete it.
4. Create a file by name "IEXPLORE.exe.local". Make sure that it does not have the .txt extension. [Go to Tools-> Folder Options -> View -> uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types".]
5. Launch iexplore.exe from the same folder and verify that it works.
6. Right click on iexplore.exe and select "Send To...-> Desktop (Create Shortcut)".

This method also helps in running both IE7 and IE6 side-by-side! A great help for web designers. To uninstall, just delete the folder where you extracted the installation package!

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