How To Natively Mount And Burn ISO Images In Windows 10

File Explorer in Windows 8 was revamped and the new look made its way to Windows 10. File Explorer got a new name; Windows Explorer and it bid farewell to the controls bar just below the address bar. The new UI features three basic ribbons that mimic the grouped controls you see in MS Office apps. The ribbon tabs have more or less the same controls you could access either from the control bar or the menus but some controls appear only when a specific type of file is selected. In Windows 7, regardless of what type of file you selected, you could always see a ‘Burn’ option at the top that allowed you to burn the file to a disc. With Windows 10, the option has not only migrated to a different tab, it’s also only available for certain file types. It gives the impression that you can no longer burn or mount disc files in Windows 10 when in fact, you can. Here’s how.

Here’s the burn option appearing for a folder of images in Windows 7;

When you select a similar folder in Windows 10, this is what you see;

The burn feature, as well as the option to mount a disc image file are present in Windows 10 and they do not require the use of any third-party apps, nor changes to the registry to see. To mount a disc image, select the file in Windows Explorer and go to the Manage tab. The Manage tab is always context aware and the controls in it change depending on the selected file type. When you select the ISO file, the Manage tab featuring Disc Image Tools has two options; Mount and Burn.

If you choose to Mount the file, you can see what’s inside and even execute files in it.

And if you choose to burn it, it will ask you to select the disc burning device.