Is the new IE9 a standalone browser

Anyone that has installed the 开发者_StackOverflownew IE9 know if I can keep IE8 installed? I do a lot of web testing and don't want to update to IE9 if I loose IE8.

best way is to install a Virtual Machine

Per Microsoft:

If you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 on your computer, you can install the Internet Explorer 9 Beta to replace your existing version of Internet Explorer. After you install Internet Explorer 9, you can uninstall it to restore the previously installed version of Internet Explorer.

So no, it will overwrite IE8 (at least the Beta will. I suppose this is not guaranteed to be the same for the release version).

I use Virtual PC with images of the browsers I need to test, but also and more lately, IETester, http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage. It allows you to run multiple versions of IE side by side.

If you want to be able to play with the new features of IE9 without installing the entire browser (which will replace IE8) you can install the Platform Preview. The PP is stand-alone, includes the latest features and bug fixes and has been getting updated roughly every 8 weeks. You can get the latest Platform Preview at:

www.ietestdrive.com

FYI: the production IE 9 does not accurately reproduce IE 8. I've got a CSS issue I'm chasing down now because IE 9's IE 8 mode isn't the same as real IE 8.

If you are concerned with testing how your site looks in IE8/7, you can use the Developer Tools (press F12) to switch the Browser modes and Document modes so that IE9 interacts with the web server as a different user agent, and renders the HTML document according to the version rules.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-sg/ie/ff468705(en-us).aspx#_New_Dev_Tools

IE9 beta is released as a Windows update, so after installing it and playing around, you can remove it from Programs and Features -> Installed Updates, which will recover IE8.

hit f12 on ie9, it will pop up the debug console. In the menu there is a browser mode option where you can set the browser to display as ie8 and a bunch of other versions too.

Also, if you're mouse focus is on the console and you hit ctrl+r, it will clear your browser cache... This is a feature that all the other browser debuggers lack.. ability to quickly clear cache.... I'm rambling now.

The best way to see your site on old versions of IE is that:
If you have IE9+, open your current version of InternetExplorer, press F12, click on "Browser Mode" tab, then choose the version you want.

see screenshot here:

Works better than IE-tester, and easier than using virtual machine.