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.

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