So you have an ISO image, now what? You want to see what is in it before burning to a CD or DVD. May be you don’t want to waste time and energy burning the file to a disc; you just want to explore or use the content of that disk image. Is there a way to open an ISO image file without burning to a disc? Absolutely YES!
You can explore your ISO files using a disk image emulator. It’s a tool that allows you to mount ISO files. The software basically creates a virtual drive that looks like a physical CD or DVD drive on your pc. When you mount an image you will be able to explore the file as if you put in a physical disc in one of your physical drives.
There are quite a few tools or emulators available out there. One of my favorites is a tool called “Daemon Tools”. You can download it from http://www.daemon-tools.cc/home
Once installed, Just click on the program shortcut and it will start running in your system tray. You should also be able to see a new virtual drive under MY COMPUTER. If you want to open any ISO image just right click on Daemon tool icon on system tray and then highlight Device and click Mount image. At that point you just select your image just like you would open any file for any purpose. Once you have mounted the image then go check your virtual drive and you should be able to see your ISO image content as if you put in a CD/DVD in one of your physical drives. It opens image files lot faster than opening a CD/DVD from an actual drive.
I will try to give you a step by step instruction on how to download, install and use it to open a ISO file. For demo purpose, I will try to open an ISO image of my Microsoft Exchange Server CD with Daemon Tools.
Once you are on daemon tools website, look for the free downloads section at the bottom of the page.
Daemon tool download section
Download the LITE version and proceed with installation. During installation you will be asked to choose different features. You can keep the deafult selections or deselect the ones you do not wish to install.
Daemon tool installation
You will be prompted to reboot during the installation. Once you have finished the installation you will have new virtual drive. You can view it under MY COMPUTER section on your PC. It will look like as if you have added a new physical dvd drive to your pc.
Virtual drive
You will also notice an icon in your system stray if daemon tool is running.
Daemon tool System tray icon
You can then open the Daemon tools panel by right-clicking on the icon. To open a ISO file from your pc, you need to find the MOUNT IMAGE option.
Right click option
Mount Image
Once you click on the mount image option, you will be prompted to select your image file. In this case I will open my Microsoft exchange server cd image.
Select ISO file
As soon as I pick the file, image will be loaded onto the virtual drive. In this case, I can see that I am prompted to install Microsoft Exchange. It is acting like as if I have put on the exchange CD physically into the physical drive.
ISO file opened
Mounted image
Once you are finished using the content of your file, you can Unmount the image.
It has some advanced functionality which allows you to do lot more than just view ISO images. You can pick the right version as per your needs. Best part is they have a free version that you can download. You will be able to download complete instructions from their website. It is not hard to use at all. They even have a user forum that you can join and discuss all about it.
So, no more burning to a disc because you have to. Burn image to a disc only if you want to!
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