For those of you finding IE8 to be another Microsoft beast to tame just as IE6 as been, I’ve provided a solution I found from Microsoft that will make IE8 emulate IE7 or to more accurately put it with render as if IE7. Although do be aware according to Microsoft, this makes Internet Explorer 8 render as if IE7 but still accesses what IE8 has to offer therefore there may be some differences in what you see compared to the stand alone IE7.

Place the following code into your header to make IE8 render as if IE7.

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"/>

This code will not only handle layout issues but also some JavaScript issues.

Why do we have these issues?
As Microsoft states: “These issues may occur because Internet Explorer 8 displays webpages using “Standards mode” by default, whereas most current webpages are created and tested to work with Internet Explorer 7 Standards mode.”

Read the full text from Microsoft on the issue:
Update your site to render in IE7 Mode
And yet more information on this issue, specifically going over using the code above.
Internet Explorer Compatibility, X-UA-Compatible Tag and More for Developers

How To Turn on Compatibility Mode
If you’re looking for how to make enable the compatibility view your self instead of from within the webpage’s code then here is the “how to” from Microsoft. Some Web sites may not be displayed correctly or work correctly in Windows Internet Explorer 8