Microsoft is adding more features to Explorer in Windows 8. On Tuesday, the company announced improvements to data access in ISO and VHD files.
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Download Windows 8.1 ISO file with Windows 8 retail key step by step
When was the last time you used a CD-ROM or DVD on your computer? Do you notice optical drives disappearing from laptops? This time, Microsoft has noticed and now Windows 8 allows users to easily access content stored in storage formats such as ISO and VHD files.
To get everyone on the same page, an ISO file is a simple disk image saved as a file that contains the entire contents of a CD-ROM or DVD – a virtual optical disk, so to speak. You can think of an ISO file as a faithful image (digital copy) of the physical disk.
So what's new and how will this work in the new operating system, you might ask. Previously, you had to get third-party software to do this job, such as WinCDEmu, but now this feature is built into Windows 8 without the need to install any additional software. The way it works is simple: "mount" the ISO file by double-clicking or right-clicking the file, or using the "mount" option in the Windows Explorer menu bar. Once you perform any of these actions, Windows will seamlessly and instantly create a virtual CD-ROM or DVD drive in the background and a new drive letter will appear, meaning the data stored in the ISO file is now accessible.
