How to make IE9 beta work with Parallels Desktop

Here’s a quick tip for other Mac users who use Parallels Desktop for their Internet Explorer testing needs: To make IE9 (in beta at the time of this writing) work in Parallels you may need to disable GPU rendering.

If you’re having problems with IE 9 crashing, not redrawing the viewport, showing nothing but a black background or otherwise behaving strangely when running in a virtual machine under Parallels Desktop, this may help:

  1. Launch IE 9
  2. Find the menu hidden beneath the little cogwheel icon at the top right of the IE window
  3. Choose “Internet options”
  4. Open the “Advanced” tab
  5. Check the “Use software rendering instead of GPU rendering” checkbox
  6. Restart Internet Explorer

Hopefully this will make IE9 usable for you too.

Posted on October 27, 2010 in Browsers

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