How To Run Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, 6, 5.5, 5.1 in Linux

Are you a developer or QA engineer, in an all Linux workplace, always looking for scarce Windows machines to run Microsoft Internet Explorer for testing your product and services? You could also be the manager who is eager to switch to Linux but cannot do so because of strong requirement for testing on Internet Explorer. You are in luck. You can run Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0, 5.5, 5.1 and even IE 7 on Linux and with better security.

How to install Internet Explorer on Linux
First you need to have wine and cabextract installed. On Fedora Core 6 just execute the following command as root:

yum -y install wine*
yum -y install cabextract


Now log out and login as a normal user. IE should be installed as normal user for better protection. Exceute the following commands:

wget https://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux


It will ask you whether you want to install all the versions of Internet Explorer. Make your choice and your work is done. Now it will download a number of files from external sites including Microsoft and within a short time you will have all three (four if you use the beta version) versions of Internet Explorer available on your machine. You can independently and simultaneously run them, which is something you cannot do even on Windows. It will add the icons to your desktop.

Legality of running Internet Explorer on Linux
The software (ies4linux) itself is GPL’ed. However the legality of the software it downloads should be verified. I am not a lawyer. But as I understand Internet Explorer is free, as in free to use, software. Running it on Linux should logically fall under the same freeness unless explicitly prohibited. I couldn’t find the license of Internet Explorer on Microsoft.com.

The website states:

MS IE license says:

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALID EULA FOR ANY “OS PRODUCT” (MICROSOFT WINDOWS
95, MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT WORKSTATION 4.0, MICROSOFT
WINDOWS NT SERVER 4.0, MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT SERVER, ENTERPRISE EDITION 4.0 OR
MICROSOFT WINDOWS NT SERVER 4.0, TERMINAL SERVER EDITION), YOU ARE NOT
AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY, OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE
NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

That is: you must have a valid OS license (any Windows version greater than 95). But this EULA does not say that you have to install on Windows. So, you need a valid Windows license, but you can install on Linux.

I thought in DOJ lawsuit against Microsoft, Microsoft explicitly stated that Internet Explorer is independent of Windows. Anyway the license as stated above and as I understand doesn’t prohibit you from installing multiple copies for different users on the same machine or even different machines so long you have a valid Windows license. IANAL.

Tip: How to easily configure it for multiple users on the same machine.

This is a highly recommended tool for development and QA testing.