Very often, many users have to work with a specialized ISO file format, which is an image that can either be opened directly on a computer to view its contents, or mounted in a virtual drive, which will work in the same way as a regular optical drive, or burn it to a blank disc or USB stick. How to open an ISO file on Windows 8 or similar systems will be discussed later. All systems of the latest generations are such that using third-party software to view what is inside such objects is sometimes not required at all. However, in order to provide the most complete information about all possible actions, we will consider some of the most popular methods.
ISO File Concepts
The ISO format, as mentioned above, is just an image that can contain many embedded objects in the form of files and folders, which in a sense is similar to what you observe when working with archives. Only ISO images, unlike compressed archives, are uncompressed, and the information they contain is in the form and with the same size of each file or directory in which it was originally presented.
Apparently, many people know that this is the format that is used to quickly create all kinds of bootable media to install or restore the system, to create backup copies of the system or even the entire hard disk, etc. But sometimes it is necessary to see what exactly is in image file, without writing it to some drive. How to open an ISO file on Windows 8 or any other OS of this family?
Basic Methods for Opening Image Files
To perform the necessary actions, you can recommend several simple methods that completely work in all Microsoft operating systems, starting with the seventh modification. You can apply the following:
- Windows tools
- narrowly targeted applications for working with images;
- archiver software.
How to open an ISO file on Windows 8 without programs?
Let's start with the simplest method, which does not require the installation and use of third-party software products. All the latest Windows systems initially had in their arsenal a special built-in tool that allows you to open image files and instantly mount them in virtual drives. How to open an ISO file on Windows 8 or 10 should already be clear.
In the "Explorer" at the selected object, you just need to double-click, after which a virtual drive will immediately appear like an existing "iron" drive. Working with disks in Windows 10 or other operating systems when using conventional media is practically no different from the actions performed for virtual drives (unless there is physically no media in the virtual drive).
But many users very often make one mistake. For example, after viewing the contents, you need to delete the original ISO file, and the system suddenly starts to resist. Why? Yes, only because the virtual disk, so to speak, is still in the drive.
Therefore, first you need to make on the PCM drive, and then select extraction in the menu. By the way, when mounting the drive and then restarting the computer, the virtual device still remains active and visible in the system.
Using specialized applications
Some users do not like the built-in tools of the system, and they prefer to use narrowly targeted programs designed specifically for working with image files (and not only the ISO format), which have a wider range of capabilities. Among them, applications like UltraISO, Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120% and the like can be especially noted. During installation, they replace the associations of ISO-files, reassigning their opening by their own means, ignoring the Windows toolkit. Thus, if you explain how to open the ISO file on Windows 8 in such applications, you can offer to perform the most usual double-click on the file, after which the contents of the source object will be displayed in the installed application.
Further, depending on the type of program, you need to use the mount point in the virtual drive, after which the drive will appear in the "Explorer" or in any other used file manager.
WinCDEmu: what is this program?
Most of the applications of the type described above may seem too complicated to many users. Therefore, novice users can be advised to use a small utility called WinCDEmu, which is an emulator of the "iron" drive.
In it, you can configure user actions, for example, choosing the letter to assign to the drive, use quick commands integrated in the Explorer context menu, etc. To open and mount the drive, it takes only a couple of clicks without the need for additional actions.
Opening ISO files in archivers
Since the image file, as mentioned above, is a kind of archive, but without compression, it’s quite simple to open any such object in applications for working with archive data. Despite the fact that an archiver is called an application that allows you to compress and extract packed data, almost all such applets are able to work with images.
In them, you can choose to open either through RMB on the file in the "Explorer", or open the file in the running application. In this case, extraction of data for viewing will be performed only when navigating to subdirectories, but such files are temporary and will be deleted after closing the program without extracting the contents. In principle, in the applications of this type themselves, you can configure the required associations yourself so as not to perform unnecessary unnecessary operations. As for the preferred or recommended programs, utilities such as the archiver PeaZIP, WinRAR, WinZIP, 7-Zip, etc. can be highlighted. All of them support working with ISO files, and in use they are very simple and have cross-support not only of the most famous archive formats or image formats, but also their own (meaning that “native” archives created in one application can be easily open in any other archiver).