Is IE10(+) identical on Windows 7 and Windows 8?

Question

I am developing on OS X. For testing I am using VirtualBox with windows VMs from http://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads

When testing my web applications, should I be testing in IE10 on both Win7 and Win8, or can I safely assume that IE10 behaves identically on both platforms and only test on Win7? And the same question goes for IE11.

Answer 1

No, they are not identical, but they should be the same for the common features that both support. IE10 and 11 on Windows 8 and 8.1 support a number of extra features that are not included on Windows 8. They mostly relate to touch and device hardware support. Windows 8.* is a touch friendly OS while Win7 is a more traditional OS that does not include robust touch support.

Differences in IE10 for Windows 7:

• The "Touch" token is never included in the UA string
• Gesture DOM events are not fired.
• Scroll, Scrolling Snap Points, and Zooming CSS properties are not supported
• touch-action CSS property is not supported
• msMaxTouchPoints returns 0

More details can be found in the IE10 developer guide

Additionally the following are not supported in IE10 for Xbox One:

• Geolocation API
• prompt() method
• Copy/Paste with JavaScript
• File API

More details can be found in the Internet Explorer for Xbox One Developer Guide

Differences in IE11 for Windows 7:

• Device Orientation events are not supported
• Touch is not supported for HTML5 Drag and Drop
• Encrypted Media Extensions (DRM) is not supported
• High DPI is not supported (except the devicePixelRatio property)
• No Link highlighting
• No Media Source Extensions (media streaming, inc. MPEG Dash)
• Doesn’t support automatic phone number detection (converts phone like numbers into clickable link)
• No support for Screen Orientation API
• No support for SPDY protocol

More details can be found in the IE11 developer guide

Answer 2

Please visit Microsoft IE 10 Dev Guide:

IE Guide: