Free IE8 RTW Virtual Labs on Vista Enterprise SP1

Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 to web on March 19, 2009, delivering a range of new features and capabilities as well as extending support for modern web standards. The evolution from IE7 to IE8 impacts both end users and developers alike, the latter having to take into consideration yet another browser in their development process. As far as developers are concerned, IE8 is synonymous not only with new features such as Web Slices and Accelerators, but also with potential issues related to compatibility. The software giant is offering no less than eight virtual labs designed to allow devs an insight into Internet Explorer 8.

The virtual labs provide the necessary resources for developers to take advantage of the best that Internet Explorer has to offer. From Web Slices to Accelerators, to standards support including AJAX, and to solving compatibility problems, the IE8 RTW virtual labs focus on various topics providing 90-minute sessions and access to virtual desktops running Windows Vista Enterprise SP1 and the gold build of Internet Explorer 8.

The “MSDN Virtual Lab: Building Web Slices with Internet Explorer 8” for example is designed to help developers “create Web Slices; use Alternate Display Sources to add active content and customize the look of your Web Slice; [and] use Alternate Update Sources to transfer update traffic to another web server,” Microsoft revealed, while the “MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating Accelerators in Internet Explorer 8” will teach developers how to “create and deploy an Accelerator for an existing web service.”

But at the same time, the labs offer resources on custom HTTP response headers, meta tags and conditional comments for compatibility, but also compatibility testing for IE8, as well as debugging CSS and JavaScript problems. Via information from the virtual labs, devs will be able to optimize JavaScript for IE8, as well as leverage native JSON support. IE8 also takes AJAX integration to the next level, and the labs deliver an insight into how to associate traditional browser functionality to AJAX apps, as well as on how to take advantage of IE8’s DOM Storage and Connectivity events for offline data storing.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) RTW is available for download here (for 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008).
 

 

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