Microsoft Musings

How to use CD & DVD image files without burning discs

With the exception of the use of flash-based removable drives, the days of portable storage in the enterprise are numbered. Sure, there are still plenty of CD- and DVD-based products in use out there. Most CIOs jettisoned the floppy drive from corporate computers years ago, but most systems still include CD or DVD drives. That said, it's easier to get along without even a CD/DVD drive these days. A lot of software used in the enterprise space is available in electronic format and is downloadable in the form of ISO images. An ISO image is a disk-based representation of a CD or DVD. In fact, ISO files can be burned to a blank CD or DVD which can then be used just like the original disc. You don't have to burn an ISO file to a disc to make use of the contents of the ISO file, though. There are a number of utilities out there that allow you to create virtual CD/DVD drives on your computer. You can then "insert" an ISO file into one of these virtual drives and make use of the drive just as if you had inserted an actual physical disc. In fact, this virtual drive even shows up in My Computer as a CD/DVD drive and works just like a physical drive. If you eject the disc from this virtual device, the disc actually ejects; that is, the software dismounts the ISO image behind the scenes, which is the same thing as ejecting the disc.
Here is a list of a few different pieces of ISO-mounting/virtual CD-DVD drive software I've used along with some note about each.  Note that this is far from an exhaustive list of options out there.  If you've successfully (or unsuccessfully!) used a different tool, tell us about it in the comment section.

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