This is css to use CSS3 PIE
border: 1px solid #696;
padding: 60px 0;
text-align: center; width: 200px;
-webkit-border-radius: 12px;
-moz-border-radius: 12px;
behavior
is not a valid CSS property and will be ignored by browsers other than Internet Explorer. They will not download the PIE.htc file.
You mention you cannot load in conditional comment, but if you can use conditional comments (?), then you can do the following trick:
<!doctype html>
<!--[if IE 7]><html class="ie7"><![endif]-->
<!--[if IE 8]><html class="ie8"><![endif]-->
<!--[if gt IE 8]><!--><html><!--<![endif]-->
<head>
In this case you are using conditional comments, but you are not loading anything inside the comments. You are merely adding a browser-specific class to the <html>
-element. Now you can do this in your CSS:
.some-class {
border-radius: 12px;
}
.ie7 .some-class, .ie8 .some-class {
behavior: url(/PIE.htc);
}