Cross browser testing Internet Explorer on Mac OS X

My development environment is OS X. In order to do cross-browser testing with Internet Explorer (IE) on MS Window, I use the following tools:

Start ievms virtual boxes right away!

When installing ievms, I had to launch the images right away. In one case I just installed them and let them sit for more than 30 days. In this scenario I could not restore them to the 30 day trial window.

Set up network

When testing, I want to connect to the local web server running on my OS X host system. In order to do so, there needs to be network connectivity between the Windows guest and the OS X host. I found it worked best when I choose ‘Bridged Adapter’ and then access the web server on the OS X host via its local network IP address.

Choose the networking mode:

Select the Virtual box image
Select ‘Settings’
Select ‘Network’ tab
Check ‘Enable Network Adapter’
Select Attached to: ‘Bridged Adapter’
Select the right device (the one that connects to your router so that it can assign an IP address to your Windows guest machine)
Click ‘Ok’
Now start your windows guest machine
You can review IP addresses: Windows: Start / Command prompt / “ipconfig /all”; OS X: in console type “ifconfig -a”; Both systems should share the same subnet in order to connect.
Ping your host: “ping 192.168.1.111″
To connect to your local web server on the OS X host: Start Internet Explorer, type the following into your address bar: “http://192.168.1.111:3000″ (adjust the IP address and server port as needed).
IMPORTANT: I found that it did not work unless I prefixed the address with ‘http://’. I also had to wait quite a bit after boot, and I also pinged the host. Eventually it always worked. Not sure which of these three made it happen…

Here we go, 2 more Yaks shaved.