Mounting an ISO image under Windows

June 19, 2006 by Isaac

I'm a big fan of the KISS principle, so when I run into a utility that is simple, yet effective, I jump all over it. Recently, I found one such utility from Microsoft of all places.

The problem is that occasionally I need to mount an ISO image so I can access it like a normal CD-ROM. In Linux this is easy, but Windows does not come with any utilities to do this. Buried deeply within the Microsoft web site is this page, which mentions:

Mounting ISO files virtually
The following tool for Windows XP allows image files to be mounted virtually as CD-ROM/DVD-ROM devices. This tool is provided here for your convenience, and is unsupported by Microsoft Product Support Services.

• Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel for Windows XP

Contained within that self-extracting archive are two files: VCdControlTool.exe and VCdRom.sys. What I like about the Microsoft solution is that you don't need to load a driver at system startup, and you can load/unload this driver at any time.

To mount an ISO image:

• First (obviously) double-click VCdControlTool.exe to start the program. You will be presented with the following dialog
  
• Click on "Driver Control" then "Install Driver"
• You will be presented with a "Open" dialog where you choose the driver. Navigate to where you extracted VCdRom.sys and open that file.
• Now, click "Start" and the driver will be fully loaded and activated.
  
• Click "OK"
• Now, from the first dialog click "Add Drive"
• Click "Mount" and navigate to the ISO you would like to mount as a drive
• You can now see this new "drive" and use it like you would any other CD-ROM drive
• At this point you are free to exit from this program. The driver and ISO image will still remain.

To unmount the ISO and remove the driver:

• Start VcdControlTool.exe again
• In the list of drives highlight the one that you mounted and then click "Eject"
• Now click "Remove Drive"
• Go to "Driver Control"
• Click "Stop"
• Click "Remove Driver"

There are a lot of steps to remember, but once you've used it a time or two you'll get the hang of it. Like I said, I like this solution because there are no programs to install -- just copy the exe and .sys files to wherever you want to keep them. This driver can also be unloaded at will and doesn't need to startup at boot time. I know there are lots of other ISO image mounting programs for Windows. Most are commercial (you actually have to pay for it -- gasp!) and have more features, but for what I do this is all I need.

Posted in Windows