Free Way to Use and Mount Images (ISO files) Without Burning Them
Posted by David Kirk in Windows
Microsoft has an unsupported virtual CD-ROM program. Why buy alcohol or Daemon Tools when you can use this free replacement instead?
Alcohol and Daemon Tools are excellent software packages that allow users to mount ISO files as virtual CD-ROMs. Yes, there is a way to use that ISO without burning it to a disk.
Although I love these tools, Microsoft has a free, 60kb program that does the same thing! Of course, it is not supported, and it is not as friendly as the software listed above. However, it works and it is free.
Here’s the download link:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38780
Here is the readme text. Please note that the readme file is incorrect and that this will work with XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 server. Windows 8 supports ISO files without additional software.
Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORT BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES
System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP ProfessionalInstallation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
6. Click OK
7. 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.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.
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Follow the reactions below and share your own thoughts.
October 16, 2008 at 8:14 pm, MAP said:
Thanks for the help.
This is good and it works on Windows 2003. However, only you remove the driver you cannot install it again and it would probably need a reboot to be able to install it again.
October 20, 2008 at 12:30 am, Mark said:
i really want to git this to work but every time i try to open the .sys thing in install driver window it says acess is denied and it wont work im currently running on windows vista is that a possible reason why its not working
February 26, 2013 at 5:33 pm, Me said:
Wow. Why is everything a pain in the butt with PCs? Something so simple takes so much work. I’ll stick to my Mac, thank you. Expensive but definitely worth it.
April 09, 2013 at 12:30 pm, joe said:
> Thanks what a useful reply.
October 21, 2008 at 3:17 am, Jhun said:
Thanks for the information. Great! so easy.
October 21, 2008 at 9:46 pm, Manphish said:
Okay so I followed through with the instructions, and I’m sure that I messed up somehow, but the virtual drive that I mounted the .iso to just says “Windows cannot read from this disk. The disk might be corrupted, or it could be using a format that is not compatible with Windows.”
Is it something I did? Or is it the .iso file that has the problem?
October 22, 2008 at 12:56 pm, Michael said:
I just installed the tool – no problem here. I suspect that the iso-image is corrupt.
By the way: thanks for the tip!
October 28, 2008 at 8:30 pm, Shibu Dev said:
Does it work with Windows Vista. I tried but failed.
November 01, 2008 at 2:54 pm, ronzo said:
thanks works great so far
November 04, 2008 at 10:53 am, BadBear said:
Superb thanks, saves me loads of disks and hassle
November 10, 2008 at 5:35 am, mv288 said:
GoI suspected something like this. Am sure Microsoft teams wouldn’t be using
all kinds of crap out there for this functionality. Perhaps there aren’t releasing
this utility to not run into anti-trust and ridiculous US patent issues…and waste their time.
Good Stuff.
November 11, 2008 at 7:14 pm, Angey said:
Can this be used with VIsta? Am having troulble after step 3, it says the ‘handle’ is invalid.
November 12, 2008 at 10:24 pm, davak said:
I use it with Vista but it is not as stable. I believe you have to run it as admin and in xp compatibility mode.
December 30, 2008 at 10:47 pm, Dom said:
Thanks for that. I loved this app on xp and was getting frustated that vista wouldn’t seem to work.
December 05, 2008 at 1:14 am, Kathleen said:
On my machine, I was getting that error because I did not have admin rights on my machine and therefore could not update drivers (.sys file). Once I was granted admin rights, I did not see the “invalid handle” error
November 11, 2008 at 7:15 pm, Anonymous said:
Can this be used with Vista? Am having trouble after step 3. It says the handle is invalid
November 23, 2008 at 7:29 pm, sms world said:
thanks works great so far
November 26, 2008 at 1:18 am, MJL said:
Awesome, highly recommended. Who needs Alcohol?
November 26, 2008 at 3:10 pm, Fellipe Cicconi said:
Best tip ever. Thanks
November 27, 2008 at 2:51 pm, Steven said:
Worked perfectly in vista
December 01, 2008 at 8:14 am, gasapi said:
i love you
December 08, 2008 at 1:58 am, Chris said:
awesome… thanks!
December 08, 2008 at 4:52 am, lazyadmin said:
Confirmed on Vista Ent with VLK works 100%
easy to use and easy to setup
December 10, 2008 at 8:42 pm, Daniel said:
Great post. Exactly what I needed and it works like a charm. (thanks to google for keeping this post on the top).
December 16, 2008 at 7:33 am, Vis said:
It works great. I also tried to run this on windows which was running on MAC with parallels.
December 16, 2008 at 8:35 pm, rach said:
This worked for me, thanks!!
December 17, 2008 at 10:36 am, tarun said:
hii..
did u find solution for this problem?
If yes please let me know I am having the same problem.
Thanks in Advance.
Tarun
December 18, 2008 at 3:31 am, Gloudas said:
Hey, I followed all the steps, everything seems to have worked just fine, but… I can’t actually use the image file itself. I guess I’m a little unclear on what this does.
I have an ISO file, and I did everything on it, but its still just sitting there as a file. Is there some way I’m able to run it now, or what? If anyone could enlighten me on what I’m supposed to be doing or producing through this that’d be great.
December 18, 2008 at 7:29 am, Gloudas said:
Nevermind, I figured it out.
December 18, 2008 at 7:42 am, eternam said:
Thanks, helped a lot!
December 18, 2008 at 11:46 am, Naren said:
Thank you very much. The tool worked fine, but now im facing problem while unmounting the drive. The stop button is disabled in the driver control window. I ve tried to remove driver but it was giving the following message.
“The service cannot accept control message at this time.”
Kindly telly me how to unmount the drive.
December 18, 2008 at 12:55 pm, mugglesquop said:
brilliant cheers!
December 21, 2008 at 6:09 am, Ralph said:
Wow, this thing just saved me lots of time. Thanks.
December 23, 2008 at 5:21 pm, Polion_iv said:
this is off topic, but i have EasyCreateIso to create the image of a dvd/cd/game disc. and everytime it created a .zip image file and i can’t mount this image on a virtual drive that i created. help ??? is there a better “free” program that create an .iso file for easy mounting ??
December 26, 2008 at 1:45 pm, Syd said:
Thank you, works better/easier than all the rubbish I used before
December 31, 2008 at 12:04 am, Avatar said:
Works perfectly under Windows 7… No other software would install
Thankies for the quick guide and tools needed
January 09, 2009 at 3:44 am, Arul Prakash D said:
Can anyone help me, I am unable to Mount ISO, message shown as “Mount Failed” also I am not able to Remove the Drive.
Regards,
Arul.
January 10, 2009 at 10:07 am, ban said:
It worked for me. Great!
Thank you very much for your help
January 14, 2009 at 7:14 pm, ravib said:
Love it. thanks MickeyMouse !
You dont have to install the VCDRom.sys in the systems32 folder. The link above is a winzip distributable. You can unzip the file contents to any folder. When it asks for the driver file, simply navigate to the folder where you unzipped the files to, and choose the sys file.
January 15, 2009 at 10:53 pm, reece said:
what if i do not have permision to accsess the folder
January 17, 2009 at 4:40 pm, qwerty123 said:
cant work with vista, fail
January 19, 2009 at 9:56 am, Noah said:
Thanks for the link! This really saved my life. xD
January 23, 2009 at 3:13 pm, Fireman said:
Great little app! Thanks Mickey
January 25, 2009 at 8:21 pm, haster said:
Hi it says that the cd is unformated. I can’t burn it. Please some one help me.
January 25, 2009 at 11:19 pm, Aamen said:
thanks it worked with me
P4 Win xp SP 2
January 26, 2009 at 1:00 am, t41 said:
daemon lite is free = so why bother – Microsoft should have these types of tools integrated into software for the money we pay
November 14, 2009 at 4:46 pm, Me said:
People should bother cause this little .exe is far more simple than that crap daemon gives us? Not to mention the Adware in it…
January 27, 2009 at 2:43 pm, Anon said:
Windows 7:
When I hit Start, it says, “This driver has been blocked from loading.”
I am running as administrator and as XP SP2 compatability mode.
Maybe I should try putting the file in the system32 folder, someone said I did not need to.
January 27, 2009 at 2:49 pm, Anon said:
No, putting the file in the system32 folder in Windows 7 means it basically becomes invisible because I can’t see anything in the folder when I browse to it.
What is a good light program without ads, spyware, or viruses, no 30 day periods, that can mount ISOs in Windows 7?
I used Alcohol 52% just fine in Vista previously but now I can’t find a version that isn’t a 30 day trial or spyware that requires you to install some stupid toolbar to use the program.
Thanks in advance for any help.
January 29, 2009 at 7:25 pm, Anon said:
I’m on Windows 7 64bit by the way.
I tried Alcohol 120% and it did not work.
Anyone know any programs that work on Windows 7?
January 31, 2009 at 12:50 am, Anon said:
Ditto.
I tried Alcohol 120%, DaemonLite Free, MagicISO Maker, Virtual CloneDrive, I think I even downloaded a 64 bit version of one of them.
I am on Windows 7 64 bit. None of the above programs worked, WinXP VirtualCD says, “This driver has been blocked from loading,” when I hit Start.
I am running as administrator and as XP SP2 compatability mode.
Alcohol 120%, DaemonLite Free, MagicISO Maker, Virtual CloneDrive, WinXP VirtualCD do not work for me on Windows 7 64 bit. I will have to make some DVDs with the isos I have but what can I do with a 7 GB iso? My DVDs are only 4.7 GB DVD+Rs.
December 02, 2010 at 9:18 pm, Aston said:
This VCDTool control tool isn’t working
I’m running the program as Administrator, I’ve got as far as:
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%system32drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%system32drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
I then get:
‘This Driver has been blocked from loading’
I’ve tried it in different compatibility modes and moving the file vcdrom.sys to a different location
I’m on a Windows Home 7 64 bit OS
December 03, 2010 at 2:22 pm, Anonymous said:
I think it has been repeatedly demonstrated that using this tool likely will not work in windows 7.
December 19, 2010 at 5:06 pm, Stuart said:
It’s not actually Windows 7 – it’s any 64-bit OS.
You can’t use 32-bit drivers (which is what vcdcontrol is) on a 64-bit platform.
February 03, 2009 at 1:14 am, omar said:
thanks a lot
this is heaven
February 03, 2009 at 7:43 am, bunny said:
this is briliant — just 60kb thats awsome
and it works well ..
thanks
February 03, 2009 at 11:12 am, Anon said:
UltraISO works with Windows 7 64 bit.
February 11, 2009 at 9:37 am, aart said:
this works great it is a good way for mount a virtualdrive from a iso but is there a way
for make it a boot cd ??
February 12, 2009 at 4:53 am, vince said:
Good piece, thanks!
February 19, 2009 at 12:44 am, JimmyB said:
used this about 3 years ago… needed it again today for extracting the installers out of microsofts own downloadable visual studio iso. works like a charm. tx
February 20, 2009 at 11:41 am, hal9000 said:
Hi! Awesome stuff. Thanks
February 20, 2009 at 1:35 pm, Doesn't work said:
“the driver has been blocked from loading”
i get that msg on Win XP 64b
it doesn’t work on 64b!
February 23, 2009 at 6:36 am, MRS... said:
Worked like a charm, thanks!
February 27, 2009 at 7:08 pm, Rick said:
This is exactly what I needed!!! Thanks for the post
March 01, 2009 at 12:15 am, nick said:
where is that file you need to put it in? plz email a prometheusf1r3@gmail.com if you can help me
March 01, 2009 at 8:35 pm, Fuzzybunny said:
I love you. And Google for finding me this page.
March 11, 2009 at 7:55 am, THEONE said:
THANK YOU VERY MUCH… IT WORKS FOR ME…
KEEP ON HELPING…
KNOWLEDGE SHOULD BE SHARED…
March 22, 2009 at 7:34 pm, jonny said:
Uh… Daemon Tools works and it’s also free.
March 27, 2009 at 5:53 am, Worshak said:
Okay, for anyone interested in this, listen up, it’s fairly straight forward.
1) Not all ISOs, when put into file format, will work with this tool. Just happens sometimes.
2) The install instructions are posted above, please follow those exactly.
3) I did not create the .exe file, but I have used it before, and it is safe (as far as i can tell).
4) The real goal is to prevent CD damage, and still have the functionality for your pograms.
March 29, 2009 at 3:07 pm, Prop said:
Works great!
April 05, 2009 at 3:48 am, alone said:
thanks a lot! it works with my xp =D
April 06, 2009 at 4:08 am, Moe said:
Wow, perfect it works great. No more using discs to burn my ISOs to.
Thanks
April 12, 2009 at 8:38 pm, Brandon said:
I tried to do it but it keeps saying “Mount Failed” ever time I tried to mount. I’ve tried with almost every drive so that’s not the problem.
April 15, 2009 at 5:44 pm, tje laughing guy said:
HAHAHAHHA MEsa LOL’ed!!!
April 16, 2009 at 6:04 pm, NRG said:
maaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!! thanks a ton! this was exactly what i was looking for
))) it did the job in less then 30 seconds. There where i otherwie would have needed to install some overbloated software with it’s trial limitations this app is free and worked perfect for me. this iso mounter goes from now on with me on a USB stick 
))) thanks again for the tip!!!
April 17, 2009 at 1:39 pm, lillo said:
really fine work!
April 17, 2009 at 9:04 pm, catarina said:
Where in the world is this folder? I looked in system 32, but ???
%systemroot%system32drivers folder
Can someone please let me know?
TIA!
August 06, 2009 at 8:13 pm, Name said:
just
Computer > C > Windows > System 32 > Drivers
it’ll just be named “Drivers”
April 20, 2009 at 1:46 pm, Batmac said:
Worked great thanks!
April 24, 2009 at 7:39 pm, Fai27 said:
Hooooooo, wow, this is so convenient. Installing CoD1 here, and There are 2 CD’s so I just made 2 freaking drives with one CD on each, and I mounted/unmounted when requested. Jesus it could NOT get easier.
April 28, 2009 at 4:26 am, mike d said:
everytime i try to mount a .iso file it simply says, mount failed, ive followed the instructions flawlessly, any ideas?
May 05, 2009 at 7:18 pm, Richard said:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx
You can download Tweat UI.
In tweak UI, you can remove drives from explorer among many other things…
May 07, 2009 at 6:01 am, grawss said:
Tried it in Windows7. Running as Admin got me past the driver load error, but it blue-screened and my install divided by zero. Reboot, nothing. Win7 repair, nothing. So I safe-moded the sucker out of drivers and logged back in okay. Maybe try it on a 32bit system?
It seems these awesome little virtual programs are being flushed by Microsoft. I see they’re possible thanks to the obvious Virtual XP deal Microsoft just released, but none of my old utilities have a chance.
June 29, 2009 at 1:12 pm, JimboJones said:
Loaded in Windows 7 32bit, mount an ISO but can’t find the drive letter?!
May 07, 2009 at 1:32 pm, Dan said:
Works Great! Nice little utility.
Thanks
May 08, 2009 at 8:49 pm, Adult Acne said:
Great suggestion for that piece of software. Thanks
May 09, 2009 at 3:17 pm, WhitE-DeMoN said:
Awesome program… There is no need for restarting the computer as all new programs do.
Nice job.
May 10, 2009 at 10:55 am, BG said:
Nice. Thnx
May 15, 2009 at 3:12 am, me said:
Works great. If you always get the “mount failed” error, you need to make sure your path has no space, so put the iso in you root drive and remove any spaces from the name of the iso
May 17, 2009 at 11:07 pm, Jeremy said:
Hah, it makes so much sense I should be angry I didn’t think of it right away. Thanks a bunch
August 09, 2009 at 9:08 pm, Davie Mac said:
Thanks man!
February 05, 2010 at 3:24 am, Some kinda long-haired hippy said:
wow dude thanks
July 06, 2012 at 8:13 pm, Nick said:
> X2 on no spaces in the path. Thanks.
May 18, 2009 at 11:47 am, Ata said:
I tried it with windows XP .It works fine. Great thanks.
May 24, 2009 at 4:46 am, your momma said:
thanks
May 25, 2009 at 6:12 pm, Chris said:
This was just what I needed and worked flawlessly for me (XP Pro, SP2). Thanks for the great article!
May 27, 2009 at 12:18 am, Jack said:
Didn’t work says there is no File to run, and when i install the Driver again it says Marked for deletion ? lol
May 28, 2009 at 3:03 pm, RHI said:
Ace . .just what I was looking for!
May 29, 2009 at 4:03 pm, Mike said:
when i go to mount it it asks me to install a disk………… can someone help please? thanks
June 04, 2009 at 6:29 am, RTFM said:
Yea!!!! Thanks!!
June 16, 2009 at 9:08 am, Lee Oades said:
Absolutely brilliant, thanks.
June 20, 2009 at 3:13 am, steve said:
this is really cool. i can’t stand bloated overthought software. daemon tools messed up my computer too.
June 20, 2009 at 6:17 pm, Anonymous said:
Works 100% for me.
when you download the file from the link, there is a file called VCdrom.sys TOGETHER WITH THE EXE. you MUST put this file in your sysyem32/drivers folder for this to work
June 26, 2009 at 8:17 pm, Rex Saffer said:
This is so cool I had to go pee. Works like a charm.
July 04, 2009 at 4:42 am, Joe said:
Ty so much for that link. it’s 100% work for me.
July 06, 2009 at 2:46 am, Dusitn said:
awesome thanks
July 23, 2009 at 5:19 pm, Bex said:
Wow, this works brilliantly! I deal with disk images a lot, but have no common sense, so I forget what I’ve named them. Using this utility, I can just open them up and see what’s in them, without spending money on a third party program. Great find!
July 30, 2009 at 12:59 am, Anonymous said:
Once i mount file it pulls up the mounted file, bu when i click on i nohing happens.
August 08, 2009 at 4:13 pm, Anonymous said:
When it says navigate to the image file i don’t know what that is or where it is. Please help, thanks
August 09, 2009 at 10:59 am, H said:
The image file is the file you’re trying to mount. They are sometimes called image files, iso files, etc.
August 16, 2009 at 8:31 pm, Name said:
I installed the driver per the instructions. My %systemroot% = C:WIN2K
in the Driver control window appears the following:
Virtual CD-ROM Device Driver : (??C:WIN2Ksystem32driversVCdRom.sys)
then I close out of Driver control. and click “AddDrive”. This automatically populates Z: into the drive list. then as a test I open Z: from Explorer. I get a dialog requesting to isnert a disk. This appears normal and an approriate response given that I have not yet mounted an image file. next I go back and mount an image file.
I do so by clicking mount then browse to an iso file. I double click the iso file which brings be back to the mount window. then I click ok. I get a message,” Mount Failed”, however in the drive list it shows Z: in the maped image field it shows ??F:Dirmyiso.iso
I go back to explorer and try to open z: again. now I get and error stating Z: is not accessable. incorrect function.
what’s the problem how can I fix this?
September 01, 2009 at 4:11 am, DLF said:
I just stumbled upon this today and love that it works rather simply! No more annoying Daemon Tools verifications or anything, I have this and it works great :3
September 04, 2009 at 6:55 pm, Mary said:
was this reply saying you could use this in Vista?
(((
the site says it is for 32bit only?
So guess that rules out this for me..
September 07, 2009 at 11:35 am, Peter said:
Wonderfull tip!!! Thanks MM
September 29, 2009 at 10:28 am, heather said:
doesn’t mount bin/cue files though
September 30, 2009 at 5:51 pm, Anonymous said:
Just Love this tool…. never thought we could do this with the ISO images.. cool.. thanks
October 03, 2009 at 8:20 pm, Anonymous said:
Already run CDdControlTool.exe but when click Driver Control button, it appears a window with an alert: “Cannot Open SCM: Access Denied”. but it opens it anyway. then when trying to install the driver, another alert window appears: “Controller not valid”
October 05, 2009 at 10:20 am, Anonymous said:
Hi,
Thanks for a great info and clear manual!
Cheers
October 05, 2009 at 6:21 pm, Sylvia said:
Is there a Vista version for this software? P13453 let me know, thanks!
June 10, 2010 at 1:52 pm, Lickydog said:
I should try MagicDisk from MagicISO – it’s free and should be better supported. he VCD from MS is not fully featured wrt autorun or ISO files on mapped drives/UNC shares.
October 15, 2009 at 5:44 pm, Anonymous said:
thank you very much-whoever made this
winxp virtual cd control panel, let it free and suggested it
it works!-)
October 28, 2009 at 2:26 am, Anonymous said:
Daemon tool lite is free and easy to use.
October 28, 2009 at 4:36 pm, Anonymous said:
I go through the whole setup (which is damned easy), find the ISO file, but when I try to mount it, the application returns an error: “Mount Failed.”
November 03, 2009 at 10:46 pm, Sangamesh said:
This works just fine. Useful tip. Thanks!
November 17, 2009 at 7:37 pm, liz said:
tried to use this prgram however I folloew the installation instructions to the letter and execute the program click driver control and it says cannot open SCM. access is denied, please help, liz
December 09, 2009 at 9:44 pm, Anonymous said:
worked well fast and easy no need for the fancy crap just like everything else with a label
December 17, 2009 at 7:53 am, Anonymous said:
Very useful Article. I like your blog and recommended my friends to read this blog
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December 17, 2009 at 7:54 am, Anonymous said:
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December 24, 2009 at 9:53 am, Anonymous said:
wher can i find drivers control. i dunno how to execute.
January 01, 2010 at 5:59 pm, Name said:
Didn’t work on a clean install of Windows 7 (home, 32-bit).
Just refused to actually mount the file — ignored the first attempt and returned “Mount Failed” thereafter.
January 08, 2010 at 6:39 am, Anonymous said:
seems like this works only with .iso files. Is that right?
January 13, 2010 at 2:43 am, colorzone said:
How to Mount iso? http://www.winmount.com/mount_iso.html
Winmount(www.winmount.com) is a powerful windows utility which is dedicated to managing files and disks impressively and conveniently. WinMount supports compressing files to MOU RAR ZIP 7Z, decompressing and browsing MOU ZIP RAR CAB ARJ ISO GZ BZ2 TAR WIM files.
WinMount can mount MOU RAR ZIP to a virtual disk or a local folder, which enabling you to use the files inside directly without extraction, saves your time and disk space dramatically.
WinMount is also an image tool, supports mounting ISO ISZ BIN MDS/MDF NRG IMG CCD CUE to virtual DVD-ROM, supports mounting FLAC, APE, WV, WAVE to virtual CD-ROM, supports mounting VHD, VDI, VMDK, WMT, Microsoft WIM, and folder as a HDD virtual disk.
In addition, WinMount can create a new blank RAM-disk, size from 64M to 4G, data will be lost when restart.
January 17, 2010 at 3:58 pm, Anonymous said:
Excellent, thanks for the tip.
February 02, 2010 at 7:03 pm, Anonymous said:
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February 18, 2010 at 11:39 am, Name said:
What do I do if I mount an ISO and then it asks me to place the disk in? In this case its Age of Wonders 2.
June 10, 2010 at 1:49 pm, Lickydog said:
It is probably a copy-protected disc and is not recognising the virtual image as valid.
February 26, 2010 at 1:32 am, Neil said:
Great simple way to mount iso’s. Thanks for the info!
March 19, 2010 at 11:24 am, Konrad said:
Great tool! Thanks for info and link!
March 22, 2010 at 3:26 pm, Anonymous said:
I’ve been using this for a couple days now on my netbook and it works great. I never needed anything like this before because I always had a disk drive. With the netbook I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t have some games that needed a cd and I finally got around to doing some hunting around and found this– now I can finally have something better to do when I have to wait around for a long time!
March 23, 2010 at 7:36 am, Anonymous said:
cough cough.. when i try to mount Windows 7 Ultimate, it failed
April 25, 2010 at 11:59 am, Oh mine.. said:
You CANNOT install a OS with this.
Use vmware or burn the image on a cd/dvd.
March 29, 2010 at 1:55 pm, Anonymous said:
thank you
March 29, 2010 at 1:57 pm, Anonymous said:
thank you
May 19, 2010 at 8:11 pm, Samith said:
thanks a lot.. simply it works….
May 22, 2010 at 11:40 pm, Isaac Comer-Wyrd said:
A native Windows program that lets you view the contents of an .iso. No need for DeamonTools.
–
Furry cows moo and decompress.
May 29, 2010 at 1:13 pm, Andre said:
Thanks great hint
May 31, 2010 at 5:29 am, Siegfred said:
why i cant install the driver, it says “The Handle is Invalid”, any clue..
June 03, 2010 at 3:57 am, boris said:
good stuff fkn…
June 04, 2010 at 9:33 pm, Alexis Rizzman said:
I tried doing the above and the result was that I managed to create a virtual drive which I now want to get rid of and have no idea how! I hope someone might be able to help!
June 21, 2010 at 4:08 am, windows data recovery said:
It has been proved to be of great use for windows users. I have used the stellar phoenix windows data recovery software V4.2 and recovered all my mails and photos.
June 22, 2010 at 6:26 pm, anonymous said:
My problem: when I navigate to the systems folder again to select the .sys file from the program, it says that “the handle is invalid”. What the hell does that mean and what do i do to fix this?
June 23, 2010 at 2:04 pm, Dennis said:
When I’m at step 4, I get the message: (In Dutch): De toegang is ongeldig. Which I believe could be translated to; The admission is invalid.
What to do?! xD
Now, I’m a total noob when it comes to ‘computer-language’ so if one could explain it in simple words, please do so.
Thanks!
Dennis, The Netherlands
June 23, 2010 at 2:47 pm, Dennis said:
Oh wait, I found the solution myself.
You just need to run the VCdControlTool as administrator. It worked for me.
June 23, 2010 at 2:59 pm, Anonymous said:
Exactly, this continues to work in vista and windows 7. The user just has to be sure to run everything as admin.
June 28, 2010 at 8:36 pm, Mikaboots said:
Worked like a charm! Thank you so much.
July 02, 2010 at 7:54 am, Steve Branley said:
Why does windows need a separate download just to mount ISO images anyway? How very primative! In linux we can mount just be right clicking or using ‘mount -o loop ‘. SO much easier.
July 02, 2010 at 7:55 am, Steve Branley said:
While I expect this information comes about 5 years too late…
The ‘image file’ is the file that you want to mount. It usually have a .iso file extension.
July 02, 2010 at 11:34 am, Jneels said:
late thread…
cannot mount on xp64, it says driver blocked from loading. any ideas? (works computer so i dont want to install ‘other’ programs.
July 08, 2010 at 3:49 am, Abraham Clooney said:
yeah it doesn’t support .bin or .cue T_T
October 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm, Gamerteen4 said:
Well that explains why it isn’t working for me…………
July 20, 2010 at 1:54 am, Lazerbrain343 said:
Im so happy with this that I’d like to mount you.
August 09, 2010 at 4:54 pm, Woggie said:
You are just an abusive A-hole who wants to find the planet where everybody knows everything you do, but who will find himself unsatisfied when he gets there because he will have no one to abuse.
August 16, 2010 at 1:22 am, Melvinrioscal said:
Macs do it right from the OS, have since 2000.
September 05, 2010 at 3:19 am, Alexey Supra said:
FileDisk ISO Mounter
http://www.jeffothy.com/weblog/filedisk-iso-mounter/
is much more useful. tested a lot. good choice.
September 08, 2010 at 6:36 am, Kedatinh_alone said:
i’ve done exactly what readme tell me to do , but when i install drive , i select vcdrom.sys it say “the handle invalid” , can you check it please , thanks so much
September 14, 2010 at 1:40 am, Pdofpoov said:
Thanks. Is it work in Windows 7?
October 06, 2010 at 7:57 pm, Daugauh Smumurr said:
i cant use it within win 7 sigh….
October 13, 2010 at 4:21 pm, RocCityPhoto said:
Works great, Thanks!
October 26, 2010 at 6:01 pm, Benni6869 said:
i did all the stps right but when i get to step 4. “If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%system32drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.” the VCdRom.sys does not appear in the list even when i select show all option but when i open the file by itself it is there so what am i doing wrong?
November 22, 2010 at 3:42 pm, Anon said:
6 years later and this worked for me! I run WinXP using VirtualBox on a Fedora Host system. The pass-thru for the physical cdrom works but Windows XP was reporting the Office XP disc as unreadable. I created an iso of the disc on another machine but was then unable to install Daemon Tools Lite in the virtual machine! Anyway, I tried this method and it worked perfectly.
December 16, 2010 at 9:19 pm, Bobby said:
What a jerk…So I’d assume you came out of the womb knowing what an image file was…I’m learning as you once learned…grow up.
January 01, 2011 at 9:36 pm, Hang N Around said:
OK, like many of you I had problems getting Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1 to work. I kept getting “the handle invalid” message. So after trial and error I finally got it to work on Vista 32bit and Win 7 32bit. Download the file and extract. Open the folder you extracted to, right click on VCdRom.sys and select copy. Go to C DriveWindowsSystem32Drivers, right click and select paste. Close window and go back to folder where Virtual CD-Rom is located. Right click on VCdControlTool.exe and select (Run as administrator). You should then be able to select Driver Control and Install Driver. Hope this clears up some of the confusion. Enjoy
January 18, 2011 at 7:22 am, IndyIram said:
wow i was just having problem and this solves it. Thanks you very much for the solution.
January 27, 2011 at 9:00 pm, Popcornr35 said:
My problem comes after copying VCdRom.sys into the the drivers file. I opened up the program and clicked Driver Control to get to Install Drive. The problem is is that I can’t install it. I see VCdRom.sys right there but it says that the handle is invalid. If you could help with this soon it would be greatly appreciated.
January 28, 2011 at 12:12 am, Popcornr35 said:
Forget my previous post. A new problem has risen. I did all that Hang N Around had suggested which worked beautifully, but now my problem is that I can’t mount my iso on it. Strange enough I did it the first time in Admin but I couldn’t do it as just a regular user. Then when I tried to go back and try to mount it again it FAILS! Its bugging me but I will be looking more into it.Will keep posted if anyone wants to know if I ever fix my little problem.
February 28, 2011 at 2:02 am, Proscopon said:
Well… After reading some of the comments… I just can’t understand them.
If you calmmly read the instructions, it’s all there.
I keep using it for some time (years) and I’ve never had any problems.
March 22, 2011 at 11:11 pm, mma said:
Amazing, Thanx a lot
April 09, 2011 at 6:13 am, Mahenxx said:
I NEed HELPP…
When i now click on my computer there are lots of CD drives …..can somebody help me remove these..
April 09, 2011 at 7:20 pm, Anonymous said:
If it says “Mount Failed” that might be because the file name is too long. This programm can only read a certain number of characters in the path to the ISO file. Please add this to the guide.
May 13, 2011 at 6:45 pm, bigrig said:
Or you can try stopping the driver and then start it again. Worked for me. try stopping the driver and then start it again. Worked for me.
June 09, 2011 at 3:51 pm, Cozettie said:
where is %systemroot%system32drivers folder.
June 09, 2011 at 3:51 pm, Cozettie said:
where is %systemroot%system32drivers folder.
June 09, 2011 at 9:17 pm, Lostte said:
thank you, great tip
June 17, 2011 at 3:18 am, lacoste polo said:
i have used daemon tools all the time in the past but somehow it was crashing a server with RAID and not allowing the computer to boot up.. also it is adware now and a little annoying – so I am glad to find out about this MS tool.
July 02, 2011 at 7:19 am, eteRniTY said:
Cool/Hott recipe!!
September 13, 2011 at 12:17 pm, bank said:
The first priority of the site administrator for your comments right know, thank you. Really very good information-sharing gives you.
November 25, 2011 at 12:53 am, danny walker said:
does this work on windows 7?
January 09, 2012 at 5:16 am, AnnoyedGuy said:
I have followed the instructions as given and reached the end. It states:
“You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device.”
However, I cannot find the drive letter (I’m using Z:) under ‘Computer’ (I’m using Windows Vista).
Am I missing something? Where is the problem?
I have definitely done everything in the instructions, so how do I use the drive letter?
March 29, 2012 at 3:11 pm, zippy said:
Thanks for this, works a treat.
Tried a second time though and Add Drive returns Add Failed.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Using dirty Vista (boo) but XP compatibility mode worked fine.
Cheers
May 05, 2012 at 4:56 pm, supyoyoyo said:
Yeah i downloaded prototype the game, and it has this prototype.mdf file, and i try to mount it with this, BUT IT WONT SHOW UP!
Tried with alchohol, deamon tools, this thing, AND NOTHING WORKS!!!
PLEASE HELP!
May 16, 2012 at 8:16 pm, hussain said:
thanks to how know the humanities for all.
June 02, 2012 at 3:01 pm, Saeed Iranzad said:
Hi
It doesn’t work for me. It can’t find the VCdRom.sys file in the system32\drivers folder.
Is this because of 64bit Win7 I have?
June 07, 2012 at 2:23 am, holly said:
where does one find this %systemroot%\system32\drivers file? i am severely confused…
June 29, 2012 at 5:16 pm, alex said:
Thanks man it really useful tool for all.
August 22, 2012 at 9:34 pm, Marc said:
Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM is not stable on MS Mindows 7 (32-Bit) and does not work either for me on MS Windows 7 (64-Bit).
Rather use Virtual CloneDrive (http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html) or MagicDisc (http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-history.htm) or ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver (http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html#ImDisk) or WinCDEmu (http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/) – All are freeware and support just about from MS Windows XP to 7 and 2008.
Used to like Deamon-Tools (http://www.daemon-tools.cc) the best, but they started to bundle too much spyware, addware and crapware into their installer – up to about v4.10 was still OK without all the badware in the installer.
September 23, 2012 at 9:43 pm, Del said:
Agreed, use Virtual Clone Drive. You can mount an iso or an img, you can allocate a drive letter of choice, tou can define the number of drives (or reduce it to zero to temporarily zap the program).
I use Imgburn to write images to real disks.
I’ve used the MS tools before but prefer the above as being a lot more controllable.
January 13, 2013 at 7:08 pm, Walta said:
in case the original MS download link does not work anymore, you can download it on CNet too http://download.cnet.com/Mount-ISO-Files-Virtually/3000-2169_4-10628996.html
I do agree with Marc and Del, it works with /up to Windows XP best.
April 25, 2013 at 12:02 pm, David Kirk said:
Microsoft just released a new version, and I have updated the link above. This version works with XP through Windows 7. Windows 8 reads images files without additional software.