In today’s digital world, downloading files from the Internet is a daily occurrence. Often these files are compressed as ISO or IMG files. Windows 10 is able to open these files directly without the need for additional software. In this article we will explain how you can open these files using the Windows 10 on-board tools.
First of all, it is important to understand what ISO and IMG files are. ISO files are archives that contain an exact digital copy of media, such as CDs or DVDs. IMG files are similar, but are typically used for hard disk images. Both file types can usually only be opened if they have been burned to a physical CD/DVD or hard disk beforehand. However, with Windows 10’s on-board tools, you can directly access these files as if they were stored on a real disk.
To open ISO or IMG files, you just need to double-click on the file. Windows 10 then opens the file in the built-in virtual drive and you can access the files it contains. However, if you are having problems or have upgraded from an older version of Windows where this feature may not have been enabled, there are some steps you can take to set it up. We will explain these in more detail in this article.
What are ISO and IMG files? A brief explanation
ISO and IMG files are file formats for saving data on optical storage media. In case of ISO files, it is an image of a CD or DVD, while IMG files can be created as an image of a floppy disk drive or a USB stick.