Most functions are accessed via the tray icon menu but other options like changing the drive icons, Windows integration and hotkeys can be changed in the Settings window. Miniso DVD/Blu-Ray format that allows you to mount a DVD or Blu-ray ISO image or folder so it can be played in a media player like PowerDVD. Virtual Drive has support for up to 18 virtual drives at once from 8 different types of disc image. Virtual Drive is one of a few standalone free tools that are also found in their flagship DVDFab Suite. Many users that like ripping and converting media will know of DVDFab and its shareware software. The tray icon menu has an option to unmount each active drive as well as a recent history list of files that can be mounted at the click of a button. An image file can be mounted by double clicking on it or right clicking on the tray icon and selecting Mount. Several different image file formats to mount a virtual disc are supported and up to 15 virtual drives are allowed at the same time. Virtual CloneDrive is still fully compatible with Windows 10 though. It hasn’t been updated in the last few years and the latest version is from 2016. Virtual CloneDrive has been around since 2005 and the company behind it, Elaborate Bytes, are the same people behind the famous CloneDVD and CloneBD ripping software. All tools were tested in Windows 10 and 7 64-bit. Windows 10 has basic ISO mounting built in but here we list 10 free virtual drive emulators that you can use to mount ISO images and other types of disc images so they behave like real discs. The ISO image is then mounted to the virtual drive to create a virtual disc. This is known as virtual drive software because the drive isn’t real and it just emulates a real optical drive. This allows you to install software, read or play the disc contents like it was physically inserted into your computer. Another option is using a program to make the ISO image behave like a real disc. It can also be written to a USB flash drive to install something like Windows or Linux faster. The ISO can be burned to a CD or DVD to create a copy of the original disc. Once you have the file, there are several things you can do with it. Or they can be downloaded from the internet.

ISO image files can easily be created using software such as WinX DVD Ripper, all you need is a ROM drive and an optical disc. Even Microsoft utilizes ISO image files and the Windows install DVD is these days distributed as an ISO. These files, which can also store a copy of DVD or Blu-ray media, are more commonly known as ISO images. This made it possible to store collections or backups of your important optical media in one location. The original idea to create an exact copy of a CD-ROM disc and place the data into a file which can be stored on a hard drive or USB flash drive was a great invention.

Software to open disc image file