Win7 and ISO Images

There are a lot of utilities out there that will allow you to burn ISO images to a CD or DVD like Nero and Power2Go. But if you don’t want to waste the time or plastic to make disc, your best bet is use a program that can mount an ISO just a like it was real drive.

I just installed Win7 RC on another box and most of the software I’ll install are in the form of ISO images. Of course, out of the box, Win7 (just like our earlier OSes) doesn’t come with an ISO reader.

IMAO, the best until to resolve this issue is Elby’s Virtual CloneDrive. I’ve used it on Windows XP, Vista, Server 2008, and now Win7 Beta 1 and RC. The best part of this program is that it’s FREE!

Once you install it, just double click on any ISO image and its just like you installed a disc into a drive. Just to avoid any confusion on drive letters and such, I believe it’s a good idea to change the drive letter in which the CloneDrive is assigned to. To do that, go into the Disk Management found under Computer Management and change the drive letter to something other than the default letter. Personally, I like to put disc drives around Q or R letters of the alphabet.

Excelsior!

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