Microsoft has a cubic ton of developers, so it really should be no surprise that they write utilities that help them to be more productive. A lot of these tools, once matured, turn into what Microsoft calls "PowerTools". But there are other, less celebrated tools that can be found in the depths of Microsoft's websites, and this is one of them. Other utilities exist to allow you to mount an ISO disk image as a drive in Windows, and this one is definitely not the sexiest. It is, however, free - and it does its job just fine, thank you. This is the kind of functionality that I wish they would just include in Windows. I don't know if Macs can do this natively, but for some reason I have a sneaking suspicion that if a mainstream OS was to include this functionality, it would be OS X before it would be Windows. And I'm a Windows guy. *sigh* [via digg]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-15-2005 @ 11:26PM
Kesey said...
I've always found Daemon tools the best for things like this. It will do more than just .iso images as well.
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8-16-2005 @ 12:28AM
wastern said...
OS X does do this natively. its about time Windows came out with something. I used Daemon tools some, but it if i remember right it sits in your system tray by default which i was not a fan of
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8-16-2005 @ 12:40AM
cell-gfx said...
I agree with Kesey wholeheartedly. Every time you want to manage the mounts with this tool, you have to run it and use the clunky interface. It doesn't live in the system tray nicely like Daemon Tools!
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8-16-2005 @ 4:32AM
hafa said...
another software from microsoft? thanks but NO thanks.
i'll keep drinking my alcohol and ignore everything else
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8-16-2005 @ 4:57AM
chakatns said...
Hahah, it was about time that MS do something like this, but why only ISO? Lamers, always a step behind :(. I, and majority of this world will use d-tools.
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8-16-2005 @ 5:05AM
John Green said...
C'mon. This tool is old and smelly. It's totally useless in comparison to the well known tools that are mentioned before by Kesey.
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8-16-2005 @ 5:06AM
chakatns said...
Hahah, it was about time that MS do something like this, but why only ISO? Lamers, always a step behind :(. I, and majority of this world will use d-tools.
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8-16-2005 @ 5:07AM
Revo said...
wow why would you use this? use daemon tools with awxd tools and you'll be set right click any image file daemon tools -> then the virtual cd drive you want to mount it to. Microsoft is very behind
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8-16-2005 @ 5:08AM
Andrew Stewart said...
I am a fan of Daemon tools because you can basically mount any image file no matter what program created it, and can be handy for incase the burning programs dont support an image, you just mount the image, and fireup your image buring program and do a simple disc clone, it works fine, if this program supports more than -.iso then I might have a look.
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8-16-2005 @ 5:34AM
Kent said...
I think Apple has had disc mounting since at least OS9.
Daemon Tools is made much more useful by using one of the 3rd party tools that lets you right-click on a file to mount it.
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8-16-2005 @ 10:51AM
Jos?le said...
I like Daemon Tools because I can load .iso's, .bin and .cue files, etc etc. I play a lot of games on my laptop when I'm sitting around doing nothing, and I've ripped most of the game cd's with CloneCD or Nero and play them directly from the images. Works great!
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8-16-2005 @ 12:19PM
David Ron said...
Linux is more mainstream than OSX when you look at servers in addition to desktops (both of which benefit from this utility), and Linux has this functionality for years.
(Typing from a Linux desktop right now)
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8-16-2005 @ 12:27PM
Psych said...
i like to use alcohol 120% for this job, it's also a great cd burning program as well
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8-16-2005 @ 2:29PM
Jason Clarke said...
Fair enough; I probably should have used the term "retail OS" rather than "mainstream OS". By the way, thanks all for the pointers to Daemon Tools.
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8-16-2005 @ 9:40PM
JinFX said...
wow i am one of only 3 commenters that use alcohol 120%. well thats no surprise cuz u have to (crack/pay for) it
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8-16-2005 @ 10:20PM
JinFX said...
but when Daemon Pro is out... there will be no competition (i hope
and heres hoping DLSQ will watch out for it!
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