Transparent Picture safe or not?

what do you guys think about using transparent images? According to the latest info i saw only about 20% of ie users have updated to the newest ie (does ie 6 support transparency? i don't think so... but not sure) but that survey did not account for users of other browsers.

also what is a good way to have ie 6+7 on my computer at the same time? I am using vista, and the last standalone ie i used didn't work.

The best way to run IE6 and IE7 on the same computer is to install Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 which allows you to install separate operating systems on the same computer. In this case you would probably install the same OS Vista (or XP SP2) but one would have IE6 and the other IE7.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pr...c/overview.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine

I haven't done that, I use an old computer with IE6; it helps to see two screens at the same time and avoids switching from one virtual machine to another on the same computer. You could probably buy an old computer with IE6 very cheaply.

Transparent png images are a problem on IE6 but I think transparent gifs are OK. See
http://www.webdevforums.com/showthr...transparent+png

Do a search on this website because I read that there are hacks for pngs in IE6. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/

Transparent gifs always appear to work in all of my web sites I work on - in all browsers. ghost is right about pngs, they are not fully supported in all browsers (too bad, because they allow some GREAT drop shadows).

I remember there being a time when Opera would simulate other browsers, even WAP browsers.

um you definitely do not need to install a whole other operating system to use both ie6 and ie7. just install a small program called multipleIE. lets you run all IE's from 5 and up on the same machine.

and i use transparent pngs all the time. all you have to do is employ IE's proprietary image effects (alphaimageloader) whenever IE is detected.

i tried that multiple ie thing, it crapped out on vista
i guess il convert to gif, it sholdn't be a prob.