How to test my site on older Internet Explorer versions using F12 developer tools in IE11

Question

I want to test how does my site behave in older Internet Explorer versions. I have IE 11 on my machine and I currently does not want to use virtual machines or other alternatives of the F12 developer tools. What bothers me is that after pressing F12, there are two dropdowns- Document mode and User Agent string. I have read a lot of articles like http://msdn.microsoft.com/enus/library/ie/dn255001(v=vs.85).aspx and still does know how to configure the dropdowns in order to make the best approximation of let` s say IE9. Here are the options I see:

• Document mode = 9, User Agent string = Default
• Document mode = 9, User Agent string = Internet Explorer 9
• Document mode = Edge (default), User Agent string = Internet Explorer 9

Some advice will be great! Thanks in advance for your cooperation! -Asen

Answer 1

Configuring the UA strings and rendering engine is a good start, but as @Teemu notes, a VM is the best way to go. Microsoft offers free VMs for you to use at: https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads

Note: For the emulation tab, you should set it up to match, so that the IE9 engine is rendering what a site gives it (under the impression it's talking to IE9). If you don't have any engine-specific code in your website, then don't worry about the UA string - just change the document mode.