Installing IE8 without the usual update process, scanning and et all!

I recently had a requirement where I had to test an application in Internet Explorer 8, but the rig had only Windows XP SP2 with IE6. When tried installing IE8 using the official installation, it was prompting to install a bunch of updates, malware scanning and was taking forever. Thought for a moment and tried the following steps which worked:

• Downloaded the IE8 installation from Microsoft.com
• Used the Universal Extracter and extracted the IE8 installer executable to a directory
• Copied the complete extracted directory to a thumbdrive and moved it to the testing rig
• Executed the iesetup.exe inside the update directory

Double clicked on the iesetup.exe and voila! Internet Explorer Installation screen greeted with the usual update option. Neglected the warning, options and clicked on install Internet Explorer 8.

After a few minutes, the system requested a reboot and IE8 was up and running.

 

While I was happy to have the system updated with IE8, it is definitely not recommended unless one knows what he/she are doing. Please read the above procedural steps with standard disclaimer and warning!
It might cause system instability / security issues will still be open and is not recommended at all. This post for documentation purposes only and to have an artifact that it can done!

If you require help in locating universal extractor, try  http://legroom.net/software/uniextract and it is free. Please scan the files if you download from any other sources.

IE8's official links are:
Windows XP (32 Bit): http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/C/0/CC0BD555-33DD-411E-936B-73AC6F95AE11/IE8-WindowsXP-x86-ENU.exe
Windows XP (64 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/4/754D6601-662D-4E39-9788-6F90D8E5C097/IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe
Windows Vista (32 Bit): http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/8/8/F88F09A2-A315-44C0-848E-48476A9E1577/IE8-WindowsVista-x86-ENU.exe
Windows Vista (64 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/C/F/DCF5DACB-313F-40C6-889C-AD1F8546099D/IE8-WindowsVista-x64-ENU.exe
Windows Server 2003 (32 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/0/7507EBD5-0193-4B7F-9F14-9014C7EB5C67/IE8-WindowsServer2003-x86-ENU.exe
Windows Server 2003 (64 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/4/754D6601-662D-4E39-9788-6F90D8E5C097/IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe
Windows Server 2008 (32 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/8/8/F88F09A2-A315-44C0-848E-48476A9E1577/IE8-WindowsVista-x86-ENU.exe
Windows Server 2008 (64 Bit) : http://download.microsoft.com/download/D/C/F/DCF5DACB-313F-40C6-889C-AD1F8546099D/IE8-WindowsVista-x64-ENU.exe

Happy days!