Have you ever tried mounting an .iso image (a CD or DVD image) on Windows XP ? You end up needing 3rd party software, you’ll most likely have to reboot since it installs a driver, and you end up allocating a huge chunk of memory to what is really a very simple task.
I’ve just been reminded (via Hack Your Day) of the simplest, safest, way to mount an .iso image. The program, supplied by Microsoft, is only 23K program, and comes with a 9K sys file driver.
The one downside is that this file is not actively supported by Microsoft, meaning they are not developing it, and probably won’t accept any support requests for it. However, I’ve used it extensively on Windows XP (SP 3) and Daniel Pataki of Hack Your Day is using it on 32bit Windows 7 and it works perfectly for him.
First of all, download winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel from the Microsoft servers. It is a self extracting zip file, so just execute it, and tell it to place the files in a folder. I stored them in a folder in my Program Files folder, as if it were a normal application.
To install the program and it’s driver:
1. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
2. Click “Driver control”
3. If the driver is in the same directory as VCdControlTool.exe, it will be found automatically. Otherwise click the “Install Driver” button is available, navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and Open it, then click “Start”.
4. Click OK.
5. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
6. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
7. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. It works OK with mapped network drives, as well.
You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. You can close the application as soon as the image has been mounted, but if you want to unmount the image, just restart the exe and click unmount, or stop the service in the device manager. That’s it, task done, no memory footprint, not bloatware, nothing, just a mounted disk, wonderful!
While the initial installation may seem more technical, it is quicker than Daemon Tools or Power Iso or something like that. Furthermore, the light weight means there’s much less impact on your system.
Thanks, Microsoft!
