Here’s a new windows feature that I really like: you can mount ISO files to act as drives.
It used to be that you had to install third party software to be able to do this, but that’s no longer the case. If you have Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012, then you can work with ISO files without needing any third party software.
In a few quick steps, here’s how to mount an ISO as a drive and access its contents:
- Browse to your ISO file in Windows Explorer
- Right-click the ISO file
- Select the Mount option (NOTE: try to have the file on your local filesystem. Mounting from a NAS, for example, will throw an error)
- You should now see your ISO image as a new disk drive in your file system in Windows Explorer
- At this point you can access the ISO just like it was another drive connected to your computer.
- Don’t forget to Eject (un-mount) your virtual drive once you are done