Currently, you can successfully replace any CD or DVD disk with its virtual image. However, some inexperienced users may find it difficult to work with disk images. In fact, there is nothing difficult in using images, it is enough to resort to the help of a special program. To open a disk image on a computer, you will need:

- Computer (Order from us);

- One of the following programs: Ultra Iso, Alcohol 120% or Daemon Tools;

- Disk image.

Instructions

1. Ultra iso

The most common disk imaging program is UltraIso. First of all, this program has earned its popularity due to its wide capabilities. It is able not only to run disk images, but also to make certain changes to them. To easily run the image through this program, you need to do the following:

After these steps, the disk image will be launched on the computer.

1. Alcohol 120%

Currently, there are a lot of such programs, the second place among applications for working with images is occupied by the Alcohol 120% application - this is a paid program, but it has a free trial period. Install this application on your hard drive and open it. Click on one of the available virtual drives, they are located at the bottom of the program, and click the "Mount image" command, specify the location of the disk image and confirm its use. The disc will become available as standard.

1. Daemon tools

The third known program for such tasks is DaemonTools. Download the DaemonTools setup file and install the application. Reboot your operating system. The DaemonTools utility will start automatically when Windows starts and will be minimized to the tray. Move the cursor over the icon of this utility in the tray and right-click, click the command "Virtual CD / DVD ROM" and click "Mount image". Specify the location of the disk image and complete the procedure by clicking on the appropriate button. The image will open.

1. Windows operating system can recognize iso files as archive files. Never try to unpack such files, they are not archives, and the unpacking process may damage the file structure and it may stop working.

Video: How to open a disc image

Let's say you've downloaded a movie, game, or video from the Internet. Everything went well, the download process is complete and you are trying to open the file in anticipation of the upcoming rest. But it does not open and, in addition, it does not have the .exe format or the .avi video format, which is usual for games, but instead has the .iso extension, which is not clear how to open it.

So how do you open iso files that are otherwise called virtual disk images?

An .iso file is a digital image of an optical disc (either a copy of a real CD / DVD disc or an artificially created disc image).

Considering all the amount of software that currently exists in the Internet space, it is rather difficult to choose a simple, convenient and most suitable program for the set goals. A similar situation is observed with programs for launching and opening .iso files. We have selected five programs that, in our opinion, will be most suitable for solving the tasks at hand. Let's look at how to open an iso file using each of these programs.

WinRAR

One of the simplest programs to open iso files is the well-known WinRAR archiver. Almost all versions of the Windows operating system provide for the presence of this program in the standard software set. We will not describe all the properties of the archiver, we will consider only the property we need - opening files that are disk images.

Using the program is quite simple: right-click on the .iso file. A context menu will open in front of you, in which you need to find the "Extract" tab.

The file is automatically opened through WinRAR, which offers a choice of where to extract all content from the disk image. After that, you just have to wait until all the information contained in the .iso file is downloaded to the location you specified.

Daemon tools

As for Daemon Tools, we have it - there is a more detailed procedure for working with this popular program.

Another program that allows you to open and read disk images. It is an emulator that creates virtual drives on a computer, through which virtual disk images with the .iso permission are opened. In other words, the program "tricks" the computer into recognizing the .iso file as a disc in the CD / DVD drive.

We will not describe all the subtleties of working with Daemon Tools, we will only consider how to open an iso disk image using this utility:

As the name of the program suggests, it is specifically designed to work with files that are disk images. It is quite simple to work with it. Let's take a look at the process of opening and playing an .iso file in a few steps:

Alkohol 120%

Quite a popular and well-known program for opening iso images. It can be used to launch or play the contents of .iso files. It should be noted right away that the program is more difficult to use for inexperienced users and to play files it is necessary to perform an order of magnitude more actions than in previous programs. In addition, the program is paid, and for permanent use you need to buy a licensed version.

Let's see how to use Alkohol 120% to open disk images:

Power ISO

Power ISO is a small and easy-to-use emulator program for playing disc images. It is an extended version of the Ultra ISO program that allows you to play not only .iso files, but also other image files that have the permissions .bin, .mdf, .mdl, .md2-5, etc. The principle of operation of the program is exactly the same as that of Ultra ISO, so we will not re-examine the steps required to open the desired file. We just repeat the same steps and in the same order as in the Ultra ISO program.

Other programs to open .iso files

In addition to the above programs, you can use others. As a rule, other programs are not so convenient for inexperienced users, or there is no Russian version of the program, or the free version is distributed only for a certain time. However, if you do not have Internet access, but the software allows you to choose several options for opening .iso files, you can use programs such as ISOBuster, Roxio Easy Media Studio, WinISO, or Gilles Vollant WinImage.

ISO is an optical disc image recorded to a file. It is a kind of virtual copy of a CD. The problem is that in Windows 7 there is no special toolkit for launching objects of this kind. However, there are several ways in which you can play ISO content on a given OS.

ISO in Windows 7 can only be run using third-party software. These are special imaging applications. It is also possible to view the contents of the ISO using some archivers. Next, we will talk in more detail about the various methods for solving the problem at hand.

Method 1: Programs for working with images

Let's consider the algorithm of actions using third-party software for image processing. One of the most popular programs for solving the problem posed in this article is an application called UltraISO.

1. Run the program and click on the icon "Mount to virtual drive" on its top panel.



2. Further, in order to select a specific object with the ISO extension, click on the ellipsis button opposite the field "Image file".



3. A standard file selection window will open. Go to the directory where the ISO is located, select this object and click "Open".



4. Then press the button "Mount".



5. Then click on the button to the right of the field "Virtual Drive".



6. The ISO file will then be launched. Depending on its content, the image will open in "Explorer" media player (or other program), or if it contains a bootable executable file, the application will be activated.

   

Method 2: Archivers

You can also open and view the contents of the ISO, as well as run the individual files contained in it, using ordinary archivers. This option is good because, unlike imaging software, there are many free programs among this type of application. We will look at the procedure using the example of the 7-Zip archiver.

1. Launch 7-Zip and use the built-in file manager to navigate to the directory containing the ISO. To view the contents of the image, just click on it.



2. A list of all files and folders stored in the ISO will open.



3. If you want to extract the contents of the image in order to play it or perform other processing on it, you need to go back a step. Click on the folder-shaped button to the left of the address bar.



4. Highlight the image and press the button Checkout on the toolbar.



5. An unpacking window will open. If you want to unzip the contents of the image not to the current folder, but to another, click on the button to the right of the field "Unpack to ...".



6. In the window that opens, navigate to the directory containing the directory where you want to send the ISO content. Highlight it and click "OK".



7. After the path to the selected folder is displayed in the field "Unpack to ..." in the extraction settings window, click "OK".



8. The file will be extracted to the specified folder.



9. Now you can open standard Windows Explorer and go to the directory that you specified when unpacking in 7-Zip. All files extracted from the image will be located there. Depending on the purpose of these objects, you can view, play or perform other manipulations with them.

   

Despite the fact that the standard Windows 7 tools do not allow you to open an ISO image or run its contents, there at least this can be done using third-party programs. First of all, special imaging applications will help you. But the task can also be solved using conventional archivers.

The most common disc image format is ISO. Any emulators of digital disks are capable of opening ISO, and in some operating systems there are standard utilities. The format gets its name from the ISO 9660 CD file system - hence the ISO extension. How to open such files on different OS, we will figure it out below.

General description of the iso format

ISO is a digital copy of CDs, DVDs, Blue Ray discs and other physical media. Such files are created by optical disc emulators. Information and file system are copied from the CD and created as one file. The resulting file is called a virtual disk. If you have a virtual drive emulator, a program that simulates a drive and an inserted disc, you can open the ISO file.

Images are used for backing up information, copying information from physical media, transferring it from physical media over the Internet while preserving the file structure and for replicating disks. When overwriting data from one disc to another, simple copying is not enough. By duplicating files from disk to disk, the structure of the receiving disk does not change. This means that if the task is to create an installer disk for some program, for example Windows, then we will not get the installer simply by copying the folders. For the copy to work, you also need to migrate the file system. For this, disk images are used.

Simply put, a digital copy can be used just like a real one, only without a physical shell. Which, however, is rarely needed, since new computers, all-in-ones and laptops do not have floppy drives.

Note that the use of disc images is not limited to CDs. They can be placed on any media such as USB devices.

Most of the released games, programs, films are created in ISO format. Even giants like Windows use this extension for their OS.

Keep in mind that ISO images contain less data than the original. For example, ISO does not include the service information of the media where the protection against hacking is located. This allows you to create unlicensed copies of programs.

How and what to open iso file extension

To view virtual disks, you need specialized software, even for the popular ISO format. You can open virtual disks with emulators.

Programs for opening ISO:

• Is a common emulator that works with ISO. You can open it by clicking on the "create image" button. In versions of the program, the function of this key can be performed by the icon "+" or "mount image". Deamon Tools has a wide range of functionality. With its help, you can not only open images, but also create them or write them to free optical disks;
• - free version of the program with reduced functionality;
• - an emulator similar in interface and functions to Deamon Tools;
• - a simplified version of the program, which is freely available;
• Is a free emulator, often used to convert other image formats to ISO.
• - classic archiver that opens ISO. To do this, you need to right-click on the file, select the line "open with" and find winrar in the window that appears. However, the archive can only open the ISO image. You cannot burn it to a CD using this program. Also, it will not work to create an image using the archive. Winrar is only applicable for unpacking an ISO file. It is distributed on a paid basis, but there is a 30-day free period.

On windows 7

If you are wondering how to open an ISO file on windows 7, do not worry, it will not cause difficulties. The above programs and algorithms are suitable for solving this problem. After installing the emulator, drag the file into the working window or open the ISO by specifying its location in the window that appears after pressing the "open" or "create image" button. When the program mounts the image, a disk drive icon will appear in "My Computer" - this is a virtual drive. By clicking on it, the image will start as a real disk.

On windows 10

With the development of Microsoft, the question of how to open an ISO file on windows 10 has disappeared by itself. Starting with Windows 8, developers have added the ability to open ISO files in the OS without extraneous software. To do this, you need to find the file in the explorer and click "Open". It will automatically unzip and you will have access to the contents of the image. In the case when you need to create a virtual disk, this method will not work. Virtual disks are mounted by the emulation programs listed above.

On Mac OS

On Apple technology, the ability to open ISO is provided initially, no additional settings are required. As on Windows 10, the software must be installed if you want to fully emulate the image. But usually this is not required, files are opened anyway, games on Mac OS are practically not released, and there are no floppy drives in computers of this company.

On Android

How to open an ISO file on a smartphone is a rare question, but an emerging one. There is an application that can open images on mobile devices. However, users write that the application is not stable and does not fully display the contents of the virtual disk. Therefore, it will be safer and easier to mount an image on a computer than trying to do it on a phone. Although advanced users through the program download an image of a personal computer to smartphones and use it as a USB bootloader.

Mounting damaged disks

Disk images are useful for recovering from damaged physical media. With the help of the program, the computer, bypassing the operating system, connects to the drive and scans the optical disc. Then the program copies information and file system from the disk and creates an image of the damaged disk. It can be in ISO format or in other similar formats.

Hello dear readers! In this article, we'll talk about how open ISO file image in Windows 7, 10 and 8. Quite often, such an ordinary question confuses many users. Although in fact, everything is very simple.

First of all, it must be said that a file with this extension is an exact copy of a CD. For example, it can be a clone of a computer game or program.

Quite often, this scheme is used to run computer games. After all, many remember that it happens when a game not only needs to be installed in Windows, but also an original disk is required to run it.

But as they say, let's talk about everything in order. First, we'll just open the ISO image. And fortunately, in Win 10 and 8, this can be done even without third-party software. Just select the desired file in the explorer:

And it is automatically mounted in the newly created virtual drive, which can be seen if you go to "My Computer" on the desktop:

Now you can also work with files from the ISO image: copy them, move them, and so on. To get this opportunity in Windows XP and 7, you need to open such a file through any archiver.

Even the built-in file manager Total Commander will do:

But we must remember that in this way we simply open the image without mounting it. And in order for, for example, your favorite game to start, you must definitely mount it. And the free version of the program will help us with this. Daemon tools lite.

And at the end of the installation, be sure to remove all the jackdaws in front of additional products that the developers are trying to impose on us:

Launch the application to open and mount ISO images:

At the first step, click the "Skip prompts" button:

After that, it will appear in the main window of the program, click on its image with the right mouse button and select "Mount":

At the bottom of the window, you can look at the letter of the virtual drive into which the mounting took place:

As you can understand, Daemon Tools Lite can create a separate drive for each image, with which you can work as with a real one and, accordingly, open an ISO. That's it, my good friends.

And this is where our story ends. Until then, and see you again. In conclusion, watch an interesting video about real people with superpowers.