HOW TO MANAGE ISO FILES ON WINDOWS XP

An ISO image (International Organization for Standardization) is an archive file known as a disc image of an optical disc, composed on the data contents of every written sector of an optical disc, including the optical disc file system. ISO images can be created through optical discs, or can be used to re-create optical disc’s using special software’s from different software vendors. ISO image files in general have a file extension of “.iso”
The most important characteristic of an “ISO image” is that it’s usually a CD image but it could be simply burned to various media’s such as a Compact Disc, Digital Video Disc or to a Blue ray Disc even by using special disc burning applications. Moreover’ it can also be used through any file archiver. ISO burning is now generally a native feature of modern home and business computer operating systems.

USING ISO FILES IN WINDOWS XP
If you are using Windows XP, then there is no standard support for the ISO files. These files however are pretty common as an alternative to installation CDs or DVDs. An ISO file is in general an image of a CD or DVD. You can use little specific CD Burning software to create a CD from an ISO file. Most of the time you might not looking to write a CD or DVD from the ISO file, you simply want to view the contents while the ISO file is on your hard disk. There are few software solutions available for this, which creates a virtual CD or DVD drive. You can then built the ISO file as a drive and view the contents of the ISO file. Most of these software solutions are commercial software, which means you need to pay something in order to use those software’s. If you do not need the fancy user interface, you can also use a virtual cd-rom utility created by Microsoft. It is called as the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel, and can be downloaded for free from the official Microsoft web address.
An ISO file allows you to keep images of CDs and DVDs on your hard disk for backup purposes. You can always use ISO files to create images that you can burn to CDs or DVDs. Virtual drive emulators(a piece of hardware or software that permits a computer to run programs and process data designed for a different type of computer system) allow you to mount your ISO files in Windows XP.

SUGGESTING SOME SOFTWARE FOR USING ISO IMAGES IN WINXP:
Power ISO:
1. Download and install Power ISO from the internet and double click to open the program.
2. Click on “Mount” the program’s toolbar and select the option “Mount Image to Drive.”
3. Indicate the ISO file you would like to mount and then press the “OK” button.

Magic Disc:
1. Download and install Magic Disc from the website and double click to execute the software.
2. Right-click on the MagicDisc icon in Windows toolbar system tray and select the option “Virtual CD/DVD-ROM.”
3. Select any drive of the virtual drives that are listed and click on “Mount.” indicate the file that you are looking to mount
And then hit the “OK” button.

ISO Disk
1. Download and install ISO Disk from the website and run the application.
2. Select the option written as “Mount ISO Image as Visual Disk” tab and choose any drive from the listed virtual drives.
3. Click the “Open” button close to the drive’s name and select the file you wish to mount in the Open dialog that
Appears. Click “Open” to mount the ISO file image.

If you need further assistance please visit http://www.livetechcare.com