In doing research for this article, I have found that there are a number of other ISO tools that are Windows 7 compatible. ISO images and that is Daemon Tools (which I will cover in the next section). I have always relied on one particular tool for mounting. So, make sure that the tool you are using with Windows 7 is Windows 7 compatible. In fact, I have even heard that if you perform an upgrade with some of those tools installed, they would not work after the upgrade and an upgrade for the tool would not install.

However, not all of them are compatible with Windows 7 so BE CAREFUL. (My personal opinion is that this application should be included in Windows just like ZIP/UNZIP file archives are today but we will save that for another article) Free Tools you can download to mount ISO filesįortunately, there are a number of free tools out there to mount. ISO files on your local computer and you should not have to pay for it. What you need is an application to mount. Thus, all you could do is to burn the optical disk, stick it in your drive, then explore it to get a file out of it. And, while those CD/DVD authoring tools will burn the image to an optical disk, they would not allow you to retrieve files out of the. However, Windows cannot show you what is in that file and you cannot retrieve files out of that. ISO file, you will be prompted to burn it to a CD/DVD disk, like this:īesides the built-in Windows 7 software, 3rd party CD/DVD burning/authoring applications will all burn these images to a CD or DVD and create physical media for you. Or, there are times when you want to mount an ISO image on your local computer (without a virtualization solution) to install an application. Still, there are times when you just need a single file out of an ISO image. ISO files to install the operating system or applications. If you are using VMware Workstation or Microsoft Virtual PC, both of these mount. ISO files in the virtual DVD drive of the virtual machine. Also, desktop and server virtualization software is able to mount these. These files end in the extension of “.iso”.įor example, if you download Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, or Microsoft Office, all of those will be in the. Likely, any time that a CD or DVD image is stored on a hard drive (instead of an optical disk), it is stored as an “ISO file”. Thus, the file format is named after the organization that created it. What is an ISO File and why do I need to access it?Īn ISO file is a disk image file format defined by the International Standards Organization (ISO). Want to install any major software application, operating system, or access any virtual CD/DVD disk? If so, you need to know what an ISO file is and how to access it. In this article, I will cover why you should care about ISO files and how to mount them in Windows 7 using freely available tools. As a Windows Admin, you must know how to work with ISO files and how to gain access to them.

Download windows 7 disk image iso file