An ISO file is no good unless it can be opened, assembled, and used.
The most common way to make use of an ISO file is to burn the ISO file to a CD or DVD disc. However, this is a completely different process to burning a bunch of music or document files to a disc because your CD/DVD burning software must "assemble" the contents of the ISO file onto the disc.
ISO image files are often used to distribute large programs over the Internet due to the fact that all of the program's files can be neatly contained as a single file - the ISO file.
Even Windows 8 and Windows 7 can be purchased directly by Microsoft in ISO format.
What do you do with an ISO file once you've downloaded it? An ISO file is an image of a CD or DVD so to use it, you first need to burn it to a disc.
Properly burning an ISO image file to a disc is a bit different than just burning the ISO file as you would any other file. You'll need to choose the "burn image" or "write image" option in your burning software and then choose the file.
Tip: If your CD/DVD burning software does not have this option or you want something simple to use, try Free ISO Burner which is a completely free program that only burns ISO files.
Free ISO Burner 1.2 is completely free and fully functional.
Click here and you will taken straight to the download page for Free ISO Burner 1.2 where you can choose which site location to use to download the free program.
Free ISO Burner 1.2 works on Windows 8, 7, Vista, and XP, and will burn an ISO image file to any of the various kinds of CD and DVD discs that exist.
It is a standalone program, meaning it doesn't install, it just runs. This is a good reason why you should use this simple ISO burner over many others which install a ton of files onto your PC.
It is designed to handle just ISO images and relies on a fast burning engine, so you shouldn't spend too much setting it up and waiting to complete the task.
So double-click on the Free ISO Burner file that you just downloaded to start using this program.
Insert a blank CD or DVD disc in your drive.
Tip: Use the smallest sized disc as you can because a disc burned with an ISO file isn't often usable for other purposes.
Click the Open button next to the empty space within the ISO File section, near the top of the program window. When the Open window appears, locate and select the ISO file you wish to burn to the empty disc. Once you've selected the ISO file, click the Open button at the bottom of the window to confirm your selection.
Now that you're back to the Free ISO Burner main screen, check that the option under Drive is in fact the optical drive you put the empty disc in. ( If you have more than one optical drive, you may have more than one option to choose here.)
Skip the customizations in the Options area unless you know what you're doing.
Unless you're troubleshooting a problem, you might, at most, want to configure a volume label for the new disc but you don't have to.
Click the Burn button to start the ISO file burn.
Depending on how large the ISO file is, and how fast your disc burner is, the ISO burning process could take anywhere from several seconds, to several minutes, to complete.
When the burning is complete, the disc will automatically eject from the drive. You then can remove the disc and close Free ISO Burner.
Now you can use the configured CD/DVD for whatever you needed it for.
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