Overview

ISO files are becoming more and more popular, so it’s quite important to have a program like WinISO installed in your computer to manipulate virtual discs. It gives you the power to control any standard image file format in order to view, extract and edit its contents. With WinISO you can even mount the image in a virtual drive and access its contents easily without going through the trouble of burning it on a disc.

Installation

There nothing particularly different in this installation than any other typical software installation, which finishes in just a few moments. It has no other applications included, no special requirements and is runs on all Windows operating systems. The trial version is limited

Interface

It has a very user-friendly interface, with appealing 3D icons for each button and neat fonts. Similar to Windows Explorer, it allows you to select your image file and open it just like a normal folder. You can then edit the image itself or the files inside by right-clicking on it or choosing an action from the menu bar.

Pros

It supports burning an image file on a CD/DVD/BD, or mounting it on a virtual drive. Mounting means inserting the image in the emulated drive, and you can use it to save time, discs and avoid burning errors. It is also a great solution if you don’t have a disc recorder installed in your computer.

Another feature worth mentioning is the program’s ability to convert image files to different formats. This way it is possible to use them with other kinds of software that have compatibility issues with certain file types. This process can take some time or finishes quickly, depending on the size of the file.

Cons

The types of images it supports are ISO, BIN/CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF and CCD/IMG, all common image types, but a poor list compared to other software that support a lot more image formats, such as MDX, B5T, B6T, BWT, CCD, APE/CUE, FLAC/CUE, ISZ and others. This drawback on particular occasions makes the utility unusable and hopefully future versions of WinISO will have a wider support for image files types.

The virtual drive component of WinISO is basic, with no advanced features, but thats to be expected since mounting image files is not the main feature of the program.

Alternatives

DAEMON Tools Pro Advanced is one of the most popular programs to help you work with disc images. It is more stable, reliable and has an extensive number of features. It comes as a freeware as well, which has fewer abilities but still remains a decent choice. PowerISO is almost identical to DAEMON Tools, with very few differences between them, most of them regarding the user interface. Finally, Windows 7 has its own tool to burn ISO files to disc, but it cannot be compared to any of the above applications as it is quite limited in functionality.

Conclusion

An image file processing tool is becoming a necessity, and WinISO is a considerable option that will help you in most cases, although support for more image types would be a good upgrade in next releases. WinISO remains really helpful for dealing with common image file types, but not always the right utility to pick for more advanced tasks.