Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg
I don't think I have ever run across an ISO file. Is that yet another proprietary compression scheme that someone claims squishes files even smaller than someone else's proprietary compression format?
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Nope. It's an industry-standard CD-image file. (I usually mount these using something like Daemon Tools or VirtualDrive Pro 11.5 to save wear and tear on my DVD drive.)
One thing that I wish would happen (that isn't likely!) is that folks, if they really want a CD image to be on the 'Net, standardize by using the ISO format. Why? It's readable by all known CD and DVD writing software, and there's no known advantage (because none of them use standardized compression) to using proprietary formats like NRG (Nero) or BIN/CUE (which is created as a pair by a program I can't recall the name of; the BIN is the CD or DVD image, the CUE is an index file)
Having to go hunting on the 'Net for something to convert yet another weird CD-image format to something I can use is not an effective use of my time. It's bad enough that (too many) OEMs have now started only putting the recovery DVD image (or images, as in the case of my laptop!) on the HD! At least the program that creates the burnable version of the thing uses ISO. Otherwise, I'd be rather annoyed at best.