Game, massive software, and operating systems might come in a disc or an iso image file. Microsoft applications suite such as Microsoft Office comes as an iso file. To install the Office suite applications on your PC from the iso file, you have to extract its contents. If you have an iso file of an operating system, you would want to flash the file to a USB stick.
Fortunately, Windows 10 and 8 lets users mount an iso file as a virtual drive, thus enabling users to access the content in the iso file. This article will further discuss how to install software from an iso file by either mounting it or burning the contents into a disc.
Mount & Install Software from an ISO file
For Windows 10 and 8 users, you can easily mount the iso file as a virtual drive and run the software installation. To, do so follow the steps mentioned below.
- Open File Explorer and navigate to the iso file directory; right-click on the iso file.
- From the menu, select the Mount option. Shortly, windows will load the iso file as a virtual drive.
- Click on This PC in the file explorer and click open the iso file virtual drive.
- Double-click on the Software installation wizard and follow along to install the software on your PC.
- After installation, you probably want to unmount the iso file as a virtual drive. Therefore, go to This PC, right-click on the mounted virtual movement of the iso file and select the Eject option from the menu. Windows will shortly unmount the iso file from your drive.
Using Third-Party Applications
If you are on Windows 7, you can't natively mount the iso file as a virtual drive and run the software installation. Therefore, you have to rely on third-party software that can open and extract contents from the iso image files.
Applications such as 7Zip and WinRAR are capable of opening and extracting any compression file. An iso image file is also a compressed file. Hence WinRAR and 7Zip can access its contents. Moreover, both of these applications are free to download, use and install on your PC.
Using WinRAR and 7Zip is fairly straightforward.
- After installation of WinRAR or 7Zip, go to the folder where you have kept the iso file.
- Right-click on the iso file and select Open in 7Zip or Open in WinRAR option.
- If the prospect doesn't show up in the context menu, you will have to open up WinRAR or 7Zip settings and configure the application to open an iso file.
- Once you have opened the iso file in 7Zip Manager or WinRAR, you can click on the extract button and extract the content to a folder of your preference. Locate to that folder and run the Software installation application.
However, if you want an application that can mount iso file as a virtual drive instead. You would have to rely on applications such as Virtual CloneDrive.
- After installing Virtual CloneDrive in windows 7 or 8, you can right-click on the iso file and select the Mount option from the menu.
- Shortly, after Virtual ClneDrive will mount the iso file as a virtual drive, click on the computer in the file explorer, and double click on the mounted drive.
- If the AutoPlay feature is enabled, a prompt will appear there.
- You can select an option to run the software installation media.
- After an installation, right-click on the iso file again and select the Unmount option from the context menu to unmount the virtual drive after an installation.
Extract the iso file to a disc
The alternate method to run the software installation from the iso file is to burn the iso file to a DVD, CD, or USB. Windows have an inbuilt disc burner utility that you could utilize to burn the iso file to a disc.
- Firstly, insert the DVD, CD, or USB in your PC, then locate it to the iso file folder.
- Right-click on the iso file, and from the menu, select the Burn disc image option.
- Windows Disc Image Burner will open shortly. There click on the drop-down menu beside the Disc burner label to select the disc if it's not already chosen correctly.
- Lastly, click on the Burn button to begin the process. Once done, you can open the DVD, CD, or USB in file explorer and run the software installation. Moreover, if the AutoPlay feature is enabled, a prompt will appear on your screen to run the installation application for the software.
Flash iso File to a USB, DVD, or CD
As mentioned earlier here, the operating system also comes in iso file format. The iso file is meant to make a bootable USB stick or disc, so you can access the OS from the BIOS Boot Menu and start installing the operating system onto your PC.
If you want to flash Windows onto your USB for installation, it would be best to download and install the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft to create a bootable USB for windows installation. However, if you are about to flash Linxs based OS or BSD operating systems on USB or DVD, you need a third-party application such as Etcher or Rufus.
Using these applications is very straightforward: pop in your USB stick or DVD, open up the application, select the operating system's iso file, and start flashing the iso file to create a bootable USB or DVD. Reboot your PC, press the Boot menu keyboard shortcut such as Esc, Delete, F12, and select the DVD or USB drive to boot the os for installation.
Conclusion
If you are on Windows 10, mount the iso file and install the software. There are applications such as 7Zip, WinRAR, etc., you can utilize to open and extract the contents from an iso file.
Alternatively, you can utilize the Windows Disc Image burner utility to burn the iso file to a USB, CD, or DVD. You should use the Windows media Creating tool to create a bootable Windows installation media. Rather than Windows, you can use Etcher or Rufus to flash almost any Os onto your DVD or USB.
