Fail: Useless IE8 Compatibility VM
May 11, 2011 4 Comments
I downloaded a virtual disk image today—May 11, 2011—from Microsoft that is purported to be configured specifically for testing compatibility with IE8. The readme had a nasty gram in it.
This image will expire on May 18, 2011. At that time the Operating System will no longer boot, and you will be locked out of the VHD. Please ensure you back up any relevant data before May 18, 2011.
I guess the date was a little optimistic because I am already locked out. All I get is a perpetual loop of Windows Product Activation and I cannot log in. Fail!.
These pre-built virtual machine images seem to be more of a time suck than a time saver. I should have—and now will—install Windows XP from MSDN ISO and patch it to IE8.
Brian Reiter's Thoughtful Code 
Glad I’ve finllay found something I agree with!
Thanks for shainrg. Always good to find a real expert.
should’ve run it with MS Virtual PC instead, works like a charm. the version of windows XP delivered with that ISO is pre-activated for the specific Virtual PC hardware, of course it won’t recognise the Oracle VirtualBox hardware and then asks for reactivation as any other windows XP would do if you just put the harddisk into a completely new box…
I ended up using Windows Virtual PC in Win7. That alone didn’t solve the problem of an expired VHD image from MSFT. I had to build from scratch with an XP iso from MSDN, which is a waste of time.
Also, VirtualPC is terrible at hosting Linux/Unix so I still use VirtualBox. I wonder if VMWare workstation would be a slicker solution overall.