Burning iso files

[Jeff Layman]

HPx64.

Just downloaded and tried to burn a *.iso file by double-clicking on it.
"Windows cannot open this file" etc. Nothing in right-click menu. In
default programs there is no entry for "iso" in file associations.
Nothing for disk burning in "Programs", or under Accessories.

After some Googling, found I had to right-click and select Open, and
then choose the option of Windows Disk Image Burner. No problems after
that.

And no,I hadn't downloaded a third-party disk-burning program (if I had,
"iso" would have been in the default program list and associated with that).

Is it just my machine? Or is this just another classic example of MS
stupidity making life difficult for no reason? Maybe MS included a
program actually called isoburn.exe in the system32 folder, and never
intended anyone to use it.

-

Jeff

 

[Gordon]

HPx64.

Just downloaded and tried to burn a *.iso file by double-clicking on it.
"Windows cannot open this file" etc. Nothing in right-click menu. In
default programs there is no entry for "iso" in file associations.
Nothing for disk burning in "Programs", or under Accessories.

After some Googling, found I had to right-click and select Open, and
then choose the option of Windows Disk Image Burner. No problems after
that.

And no,I hadn't downloaded a third-party disk-burning program (if I had,
"iso" would have been in the default program list and associated with
that).

Is it just my machine? Or is this just another classic example of MS
stupidity making life difficult for no reason? Maybe MS included a
program actually called isoburn.exe in the system32 folder, and never
intended anyone to use it.

HP32 bit - If I right-click on an iso file I get an option "Burn image to
disk" and no I haven't got any third-party burning app installed either.

 

[SC Tom]

HPx64.

Just downloaded and tried to burn a *.iso file by double-clicking on it.
"Windows cannot open this file" etc. Nothing in right-click menu. In
default programs there is no entry for "iso" in file associations. Nothing
for disk burning in "Programs", or under Accessories.

After some Googling, found I had to right-click and select Open, and then
choose the option of Windows Disk Image Burner. No problems after that.

And no,I hadn't downloaded a third-party disk-burning program (if I had,
"iso" would have been in the default program list and associated with
that).

Is it just my machine? Or is this just another classic example of MS
stupidity making life difficult for no reason? Maybe MS included a
program actually called isoburn.exe in the system32 folder, and never
intended anyone to use it.

-

Jeff

Why is it Microsoft stupidity? I think it may be you're machine. If I
right-click on a .ISO file, my options are Windows Disk Image Burner and
ImgBurn. Before I installed ImgBurn, WDIB was the only option, but it was
there from the beginning. I had been using ImgBurn for years on other OS's,
and was comfortable with it, so I installed it.

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

There are plenty of files that Windows won't open or process on its own;
that's why there are so many other companies that make programs for it (and
Mac and Linux etc.). It would be unreasonable to expect any operating system
to open everything on its own.

 

[Jeff Layman]

Why is it Microsoft stupidity? I think it may be you're machine. If I
right-click on a .ISO file, my options are Windows Disk Image Burner and
ImgBurn. Before I installed ImgBurn, WDIB was the only option, but it
was there from the beginning. I had been using ImgBurn for years on
other OS's, and was comfortable with it, so I installed it.

http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download

There are plenty of files that Windows won't open or process on its own;
that's why there are so many other companies that make programs for it
(and Mac and Linux etc.). It would be unreasonable to expect any
operating system to open everything on its own.

Of course it would be unreasonable to expect an OS to be able to open
all files. But if a program is included with the OS, you would expect
it to be available by default for opening a particular file. In this
case, why was WDIB not associated with *.iso by default? If it had not
been listed at all on right-clicking and selecting "open", then I could
assume windows didn't identify it. However, since it was the only
option, it seems that the OS "knew" that WDIB was intended for opening
iso files. But as Gordon found it was associated with iso files in his
32-bit system, and you with yours, maybe it was a glitch with mine.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

Of course it would be unreasonable to expect an OS to be able to open
all files. But if a program is included with the OS, you would
expect it to be available by default for opening a particular file.
In this case, why was WDIB not associated with *.iso by default? If
it had not been listed at all on right-clicking and selecting "open",
then I could assume windows didn't identify it. However, since it
was the only option, it seems that the OS "knew" that WDIB was
intended for opening iso files. But as Gordon found it was
associated with iso files in his 32-bit system, and you with yours,
maybe it was a glitch with mine.

Although I have ImgBurn installed and both ImgBurn and Windows Disk
Burner are available in the context menu, the Windows burner is the
default. If I double click an ISO file in Explorer, the Windows Disk
Image Burner pops up. I am running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

 

[Jack]

Of course it would be unreasonable to expect an OS to be able to open all
files. But if a program is included with the OS, you would expect it to
be available by default for opening a particular file. In this case, why
was WDIB not associated with *.iso by default?

Because Microsoft hates you.

 

[SC Tom]

Of course it would be unreasonable to expect an OS to be able to open all
files. But if a program is included with the OS, you would expect it to
be available by default for opening a particular file. In this case, why
was WDIB not associated with *.iso by default? If it had not been listed
at all on right-clicking and selecting "open", then I could assume windows
didn't identify it. However, since it was the only option, it seems that
the OS "knew" that WDIB was intended for opening iso files. But as Gordon
found it was associated with iso files in his 32-bit system, and you with
yours, maybe it was a glitch with mine.

That's why I said it might be your machine. Mine had WDIB as the default
from the time I installed Windows 7. I only installed ImgBurn because I was
familiar with it, and liked it. Don't know why it wasn't the default on
yours, but it was on mine.

 

[Jeff Layman]

That's why I said it might be your machine. Mine had WDIB as the default
from the time I installed Windows 7. I only installed ImgBurn because I
was familiar with it, and liked it. Don't know why it wasn't the default
on yours, but it was on mine.

That's fair enough, but can you actually point to WDIB on your machine?
"Help and support" refers to it for burning an iso, but AFAICS there
is no way of finding WDIB if the file association does not already point
to it. It doesn't appear anywhere under that name (at least, not on my
machine). I wonder if there are any other programs/utilities included
which do not appear by name, and which are effectively invisible until
associated with a particular file.

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

That's fair enough, but can you actually point to WDIB on your machine?
"Help and support" refers to it for burning an iso, but AFAICS there is
no way of finding WDIB if the file association does not already point to
it. It doesn't appear anywhere under that name (at least, not on my
machine). I wonder if there are any other programs/utilities included
which do not appear by name, and which are effectively invisible until
associated with a particular file.

C:\Windows\System32\isoburn.exe

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

That's fair enough, but can you actually point to WDIB on your machine?
"Help and support" refers to it for burning an iso, but AFAICS there
is no way of finding WDIB if the file association does not already point
to it. It doesn't appear anywhere under that name (at least, not on my
machine). I wonder if there are any other programs/utilities included
which do not appear by name, and which are effectively invisible until
associated with a particular file.

C:\Windows\System32\isoburn.exe

It was easy.
1. Right click on an iso file.
2. Go to the Open with menu and select "Windows Disc Image Burner",
which *is* visible on this computer, or I couldn't have gone on from
here
3. Leave the dialog box up and press Ctrl-Alt-Esc (or start your
favorite other task manager).
4. Look fot something reasonable.
5. Right click on that and choose "Open file location".
6. Windows Explorer opens with the file in question highlighted.
7. Shift-right-click on it and choose "Copy as path".
7. Return to this reply and press Ctrl-V.

See? It's a walk in the park

I tried it - it has to be run in a command window. Do that without any
arguments to get a help message. It's pretty easy - only two arguments,
and one is the file name.

 

[Char Jackson]

C:\Windows\System32\isoburn.exe

To further Jeff's second point, I think a person could snoop around in
the Windows folder and its subfolders and find all kinds of otherwise
unknown tools. Caution is advised, though, since some may have
unwanted results. Don't just run everything in sight.

 

[SC Tom]

To further Jeff's second point, I think a person could snoop around in
the Windows folder and its subfolders and find all kinds of otherwise
unknown tools. Caution is advised, though, since some may have
unwanted results. Don't just run everything in sight.

I agree. A search for *.exe on my laptop turned up 1,609 items in \Windows
and its subfolders. Lots of ways to screw yourself royally

To answer Jeff's question, if I double- or right-click the file and a
program opens for it, then that's pointing to it as far as I'm concerned. Is
there a shortcut for it in the Start menu? No. Like I said, I don't know why
it wasn't on your machine, but a lot of others here seem to have it on
theirs by default. Sorry you had to go through all you had to do to get it
to run, but look at it as a learning experience (even if it's a lesson in
frustration ;-) ).

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

C:\Windows\System32\isoburn.exe

It was easy.
1. Right click on an iso file.
2. Go to the Open with menu and select "Windows Disc Image Burner",
which *is* visible on this computer, or I couldn't have gone on from
here
3. Leave the dialog box up and press Ctrl-Alt-Esc (or start your
favorite other task manager).
4. Look fot something reasonable.
5. Right click on that and choose "Open file location".
6. Windows Explorer opens with the file in question highlighted.
7. Shift-right-click on it and choose "Copy as path".
7. Return to this reply and press Ctrl-V.

See? It's a walk in the park

I tried it - it has to be run in a command window. Do that without any
arguments to get a help message. It's pretty easy - only two arguments,
and one is the file name.

You can also find it with Regedit.
HKCR\.iso
will lead you to
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile
and
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile\shell\burn\command\%SystemRoot%\System32\isoburn.exe
"%1"

 

[Jeff Layman]

You can also find it with Regedit.
HKCR\.iso
will lead you to
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile
and
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile\shell\burn\command\%SystemRoot%\System32\isoburn.exe "%1"

Yes, after the earlier Googling I did discover that isoburn.exe was
WDIB. I also discovered that if *.iso wasn't associated with it, then I
had to select "Open" and choose WDIB (the only option I was given -
remember that at the time there was no "iso" in the default program file
association list).

What is puzzling is that on double clicking the *.iso I got a message
that Windows can't open the file because it does not know what to open
it with. But on right-clicking and selecting "Open" the only option
(because I hadn't installed any other iso burning program) is "Windows
Disk Image Burner". It's as though the source of the information to
tell Windows what to do with an iso file comes from different places
depending on whether you choose to double-click it or "Open" it. With
double-click I assume it's from the "Default program" list, but where
does it get its "Open with" information from?

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You can also find it with Regedit.
HKCR\.iso
will lead you to
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile
and
HKCR\Windows.IsoFile\shell\burn\command\%SystemRoot%\System32\isoburn.exe
"%1"

Good idea, and as you can tell, I missed that.

HOWEVER - on my computer the default has been changed (I am the guilty
party), and I get this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\DVD Decrypter\DVDDecrypter.exe" /MODE ISOWRITE
/SOURCE "%1"

So I had to do my "easy" method above

Actually, I thought I had set up a different default.

Before I devised the above "easy" method, I tried to track down the
open-with list, since WDIB is in there, but I gave up too easily