Carpe Techno

The free way:

QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator that lets you emulate a .ISO

1. Check QEMU’s homepage.
2. Download QEMU
3. If you’re on windows, make sure to get QEMU-win
5. Search for the existing .iso and replace it with the one you want to test.

The paid way:

The are a variety of paid programs (shareware) that does the work for you, the two most popular ones are Alcohol 120% and Daemon Tools.

The “free” Microsoft way:

Microsoft has a free ~60KB program that does the job. But it is unsupported (surprise, surprise!). It’s called Windows XP Virtual CD Control Panel and you can get it here

Here’s the README to get it working:

Readme for Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel v2.0.1.1

THIS TOOL IS UNSUPPORT BY MICROSOFT PRODUCT SUPPORT SERVICES

System Requirements
===================
- Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional

Installation instructions
=========================
1. Copy VCdRom.sys to your %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder.
2. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
3. Click “Driver control”
4. If the “Install Driver” button is available, click it. Navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and click Open.
5. Click “Start”
6. Click OK
7. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
8. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
9. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. UNC naming conventions should not be used, however mapped network drives should be OK.

You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. When you are finished you may unmount, stop, and remove the driver from memory using the driver control.

So, how do YOU test your ISOs ?