I’m running an old version of Windows Vista and just downloaded an install disk for Windows 7 from Microsoft to try out. Cool. Except I have no idea what to do with the 3GB “.ISO” file that I received. How can I burn it to make an install DVD and proceed?
Windows Vista. Yeah, ‘nuf said on that topic. Upgrading to Windows 7 is a smart move. In my opinion, it’s a huge improvement over Windows Vista. In fact, I have heard more than once that Windows 7 is “Vista fixed”. Draw your own conclusions.
Actually, that’s just what you want to do, right? DRaw your own conclusions by burning that “ISO” format file onto a DVD and installing Windows 7, so let’s talk about how to do just that.
Before we do, though, just a quick note: The “.ISO” name actually refers to the CD data disk format called “ISO 9660 file system”, and ISO, just to maximize the confusion, actually stands for the International Organization for Standardization.
Now, let’s jump in. The first step is to explore your computer to where you can see the “.iso” disk image in the File Manager. It’ll look like this:
Here you can see that I’ve downloaded an “.ISO” image of Windows 7 too, with the peppy filename of “en_windows_7_home_premium_n_with_sp1_x86_dvd_621536(1).iso”. Now, right-click on the “iso” image file:
Built-in to Microsoft Windows are a ton of utilities, one of which is exactly what we need for this job: “Windows Disc Image Burner”. Select it and it’ll read the ISO image and tell you what to do next:
At this point you’ll want to insert a blank DVD (you can get the blank discs at Target, K-Mart, Best Buy or even Office Max for $1-$3/each) and click on “Burn”. Before you do, though, I highly recommend that you choose to “Verify disc after burning”. It adds time, but it’s well worth making double sure that the disc burned successfully and is a perfect copy of the original image.
Click on “Burn” and you’ll see the program go through a series of steps…
Then…
And finally…
Success! Done. Now the new DVD will be unmounted from the system so you can just pop it out and go, but instead test it by ejecting it and then reinserting the DVD into the player. It should come up with a dialog box similar to:
In this case, I picked the option of running “setup.exe” and next thing I knew, I was seeing the Microsoft Windows 7 install startup:
Mission accomplished!
Great, this is the simplest and the fastest way to burn an iso image on windows 7. Also you write “…test it by ejecting it and then reinserting the DVD into the player…” well said. Many people forget to test it and sometimes the burn has error which they find it after a long time.
Jim