I’ve messed around with more than a few ISO extraction utilities, such as PowerISO, MagicISO and so on. Utilities like that do what they do very well, but you have to pay for it. And being the only real thing I need with an ISO utility is either to mount drive letters (ex: ISODisk, Daemon Tools, Virtual Clone Drive, etc.) or extract specific files from, I can’t see spending cash on something just for those simple functions.
Before getting into IZArc, if you want to work in an environment that does anything and everything to do with ISO files, UNIX and Linux rules the school in that respect. One of the most powerful programs is built right into the OS, dd. One of dd’s many features is its ability to create ISO files right from the command line. On the GUI side there’s File Roller in the GNOME environment for extracting ISOs.
On the Windows side, IZArc is actually a complete data compression tool. It will do ZIPs, RARs and a ton of other compression formats (including many you probably never heard of), and of course ISOs.
And best of all, it’s free.
Opening up an ISO is as simple as launching IZArc, clicking the Open icon, choosing the ISO, loading it up, picking what you want to extract, choosing where to extract, extracting the files and that’s it.
Here’s an example of the most recent Damn Small Linux distribution ISO opened up in IZArc:
Works great without complaint.
IZArc will run in Win2000, Server 2003, Win XP, Vista or 7.
Did you try IZArc? Did it work for you?
Let us know by writing a comment whether this software worked for you. Did you like it? Hate it? Better or worse than other ISO utilities you tried (especially the pay-software offerings)?
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Sage Crispin
28. Aug, 2009
Have been using IZArc for quite some time. Has worked 100% for me. Opens everything I have come across so far. I don’t remember how I found it, but have often wondered why everyone isn’t using it. But then again, I love KMPlayer, and hate VLC so there’s just no figuring….
Sage
Stacey
29. Aug, 2009
I am also a long time Izarc user and reccommend it to everyone. I’ve used WinZip and WinRar and do not find any difference in them and Izarc other than they cost money and Izarc is free. The ability to extract from ISO is definate icing on the cake.
Jon
02. Sep, 2009
I use Puppy Linux and it opens ISO’s without any extra application, i.e. natively, just click on it. Maybe this is common in other Linux distros too, maybe in the kernel but I don’t really know.
I use this feature to edit an iso. An app is needed to convert my edit back to a new iso.