You're making it sound a bit harder to download than it needs to be – they do provide a handy curl snippet to download all of the files in one batch – and you can keep unpacking the same download repeatedly since it's time-locked from when you start it.
Otherwise, though, I completely agree that it's harder than it needs to be. The big problem you left out are the Windows updates – both because that new VM is going to be useless at first until it installs hundreds of updates (saving files is a 100% CPU for hours NP-hard problem in Microsoft-land) and because unless you specifically disable it Windows Update will automatically upgrade you to the latest version of IE.
> the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE
The actual goal was to win the browser wars by ensuring that every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer, knowing that many people would never pay for a copy of Netscape if they already had a browser. Creating dependencies around the OS was an attempt to avoid anti-bundling laws and, like many of the other decisions they made in the 90s, a bad idea the entire industry has spent billions coping with. I'm sure there's plenty of regret now as they have to deal with all of the enterprise customers who refuse to upgrade because they don't know what upgrading the system browser will break.
Otherwise, though, I completely agree that it's harder than it needs to be. The big problem you left out are the Windows updates – both because that new VM is going to be useless at first until it installs hundreds of updates (saving files is a 100% CPU for hours NP-hard problem in Microsoft-land) and because unless you specifically disable it Windows Update will automatically upgrade you to the latest version of IE.
> the only reason you can't install two versions of IE side-by-side is because Microsoft, back when it was Pure Evil, decided to make it that way to force people to upgrade Windows when they wanted to upgrade IE
The actual goal was to win the browser wars by ensuring that every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer, knowing that many people would never pay for a copy of Netscape if they already had a browser. Creating dependencies around the OS was an attempt to avoid anti-bundling laws and, like many of the other decisions they made in the 90s, a bad idea the entire industry has spent billions coping with. I'm sure there's plenty of regret now as they have to deal with all of the enterprise customers who refuse to upgrade because they don't know what upgrading the system browser will break.