I recently had the need to create an .ISO image of a CD. The CD burning software on my computer, however, only created proprietary images. Being my laptop for work, I didn’t want to purchase better software, so I googled around on the net a little bit.
I came across a little utility created by Alex Feinman called ISO Recorder. It runs on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and the dreaded Windows Vista. After installation, it adds two options to your right-click menu, “Create ISO Image File” and “Copy CD to CD”.
The Create ISO option appears whenever you right click a folder and allows you to create an image of everything in that folder. This includes folders on your hard drive, so creating an ISO is as simple as moving the relevant files into a single folder. Very convenient.
Alex also has a command-line CD burning utility called CreateCD. I have not had occasion to use this particular piece of software, but it does look interesting. Using this utility, you can automate the creation of ISO images, great for automated backups.
Both of these utilities are free for personal use. Alex does provide a PayPal link for donations, so if you find this software useful, send him a few bucks to show your appreciation!