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 into a virtual drive that will work in exactly the same way as a regular one 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 further. All systems of the latest generations are such that sometimes it is not required at all to use third-party software to view what is inside such objects. However, in order to provide the most complete information about all possible actions, we will consider some of the most popular methods.
General concepts of ISO files
FormatISO, as mentioned above, is exactly an image that can contain many nested objects in the form of files and folders, which is in a sense similar to what you see when working with archives. Only ISO images, unlike compressed archives, are uncompressed, and the information in them is contained exactly 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 format is used to quickly create all kinds of bootable media for installing or restoring the system, when creating backup copies of the system or even the entire hard drive, etc. But sometimes it is necessary to view, what exactly is in the image file, without writing it to some kind of 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, we can recommend several simple methods that work 100% in all OS from Microsoft, starting from the seventh modification. You can use the following:
- Windows tools;
- highly focused imaging applications;
- archiving programs.
How to open ISO file on Windows 8 without software?
Let's start with the simplest method, which does not require installation and use of third-party software products. All recent Windows systems initially have in their arsenal a speciala built-in tool that allows you to open image files and instantly mount them to virtual drives. How to open an ISO file on Windows 8 or 10 should already be clear.
In the "Explorer" on the selected object, you just need to double-click, after which a virtual drive will immediately appear similar to the existing "iron" drive. Working with disks in Windows 10 or other operating systems using conventional media is practically no different from the actions performed for virtual drives (except that there will be no physical 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, you first need to make RMB on the drive, and then select the extraction from 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.
Use dedicated applications
Some users do not like the built-in tools of the system, and they prefer to use narrowly focused programs designed specifically for working with image files (and not just ISO format), which have a wider range of capabilities. Among them, one can especiallymark applications like UltraISO, Daemon Tools, Alcohol 120% and the like. When installed, they replace ISO file associations, reassigning their opening using their own tools, ignoring Windows tools. Thus, if you explain how to open an ISO file on Windows 8 in such applications, you can offer to perform the most common double-click on the file, after which the contents of the original object will be shown in the installed application.
Next, 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 file manager used.
WinCDEmu: what is this program?
Most of the applications of the type described above may seem too difficult for many users to master. Therefore, novice users can be advised to use a small utility called WinCDEmu, which is an iron drive emulator.
You can set up custom actions in it, such as choosing the letter assigned to the drive, using quick commands that are integrated into the Explorer context menu, etc. To open and mount the drive, you only need a couple of clicks without having to perform additional actions.
Opening ISO files in archivers
Since the image file, as mentioned above, is a kind of archive, but without compression, completelyjust any such object can be opened in applications for working with archival data. Despite the fact that an archiver is an application that allows you to compress and extract packed data, almost all such applets can work with images.
In them, you can choose to open either via RMB on the file in the "Explorer", or open the file in the running application. In this case, data extraction for viewing will be performed only when navigating through subdirectories, but such files are temporary and will be deleted after the program is closed 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 like the PeaZIP archiver, WinRAR, WinZIP, 7-Zip, etc. can be highlighted. All of them support working with ISO files, and they are very simple to use and have cross-support not only for the most famous archive or image formats, but also for their own (meaning that "native" archives created in one application can easily be open in any other archiver).
