ISO ToolKit: Create, copy, convert, extract and mount disc images

ISO images have been a popular means of distributing software for a very long time, so it was good to see Windows 7 finally introduce a tool to burn them to disc.

It’ll probably be Windows 10 before we get to see the operating system provide all the ISO handling features you’re likely to need, though, so if you regularly need to work with disc images then a quicker solution might be to download the ISO ToolKit.

The program supports five main functions. It can create an ISO image from a folder structure on your hard drive; copy a CD or DVD to an ISO image; convert images to and from the ISO, NRG and BIN/ CUE formats; extract the contents of an ISO, NRG or BIN/ CUE image; or mount up to two ISO, NRG or BIN/ CUE images as virtual drives, so that they can be accessed without burning them to disc.

There’s no support for burning images to disc, unfortunately, but that’s still a reasonable feature list for a small, portable tool. ISO ToolKit also provides useful extra touches where you’re most likely to need them (when creating an image you can choose from 6 file systems, for instance, and make the final image bootable). And each function is presented simply, with the minimum of fuss – you just click the tab you need, specify the relevant drive, image or folder, and ISO ToolKit will go to work.

The one major problem we noticed occurred with the image mounting feature: it didn’t work at all our first test system, but ran just fine on another. Other users report similar experiences – it works for some, not for others – and so there’s clearly an issue here which the author has yet to figure out.