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Windows 8 To Natively Support ISO and VHD Mounting

Posted by samzenpus on from the new-tools dept.

MrSeb writes "With a masterful nail in the optical disc coffin, Microsoft has announced that its new operating system will natively mount ISO disc images. On the slightly more enterprisesque side of the equation, VHD files will also be supported by Windows 8. Both new features will be smoothly integrated into Windows 8 Explorer's ribbon menu, and mounting an ISO or VHD is as simple as double clicking the file. This is obviously an important addition with Windows 8 being available on tablets — and in a year or two, it wouldn't be surprising if all software is made available as an ISO on a USB drive which can be read by tablet and PC alike."

50 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    it wouldn't be surprising if all software is made available as an ISO on a USB drive which can be read by tablet and PC alike

    I hate to say it, but I think Apple's "walled garden" formula is probably the one that's most likely to succeed--for tablets anyway. No loading software on USB drives (Apple's tablets don't even have USB ports), no mounting ISO's, no unapproved outside software. Everything is downloaded through the official app store. And Apple/Microsoft get their cut, of course.

    Even more scary is the possibility that this could become the model for not just tablets, but also PC's in the future. About the only thing stopping this now is tradition and bandwidth limitations/download caps. The days of walking into Best Buy and buying a game or application and getting a physical copy of the software could well be numbered. Of course, Linux will still be there, but how many developers will devote resources to Linux development when Apple and MS can pretty much guarantee them a locked-down, piracy-free platform (even if they do take a cut of the action)? For that matter, how many hardware developers will be making locked-down PC's that won't even let you install Linux without some hardware hacking?

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by Beelzebud · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, well, that's just like, your opinion, man.

    2. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by reashlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Linux will still be there, but how many developers will devote resources to Linux development when Apple and MS can pretty much guarantee them a locked-down, piracy-free platform (even if they do take a cut of the action)?

      The same people that do it now - for the same cut they take now. Mostly because people working on such products don't want restricted platforms. They enjoy the ability to install what *they* want too. This crap about protecting me from myself and not letting me install {mal,crap,free,whatever}ware is preposterous and an idea I'd happily see put in the bin.

    3. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Maybe you don't want this, but many people are perfectly fine running game consoles and tablets, simply because of the walled garden. I don't hear people complaining about how their game console doesn't work, unless there is an actual hardware problem. Contrast that with the complaints I hear all the time about the how people can no longer get their computer to boot because it's filled up with so much malware. The walled garden is a welcome change for most people. With the amount of junk installed on the average person's computer, I would have to say that most people should be in some sort of walled garden.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    4. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by rotide · · Score: 4, Insightful

      At some point you have to ask yourself _why_ people have so much "junk" installed on their computers. I'd wager at least part of it is due to the users wanting to install anything they want yet not knowing how to weed out the bad from the good. Saying that the solution (and the one the user wants) is to take that freedom away just seems, silly. If the solution to my family not installing malware/viruses/etc is to totally wall up a garden and only allow them to install pre-approved apps.. you can count my family out, and I'd guess a lot more users as well.

      There are times I like to just install small apps that help out with little things (mythtv remote, vlc remote, stock ticker, etc) on my phone. That's fine. Heck, I don't even want to do much more than trivial things on my phone and that works great. But to suggest that that is the only experience I, or even most users want from all computing devices, including their PC?

      Sure, many tasks might be replaced by a tablet, or even a phone or console. But for everything else, there is a PC. Unfortunately, with great power comes great responsibility. The PC tool can do a lot and a lot can be done to it (maliciously even) and you have to be educated enough to use it, at least properly. But ok, for those that have no need for one and don't really care about what's going on in the wonderful world of software, a walled garden, Angry Birds experience can also be had.

      But I would agree there are quite a few people I know that _should_ be in a walled garden _all_ the time. They simply can't be trusted to not click every single pop-up that says they won something, etc.

    5. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by V!NCENT · · Score: 2

      Do like I did:
      "My computer has xyz problems."
      -"OK I'll fix."
      *Three fixes later...*
      "My computers is broken again"
      -"Sigh! OK you either are going to learn how to properly use Windows and install it yourself, or I'm installing Ubuntu on that thing, because you obviously can't ask me to take 3 hours on a monthly basis to fix the problems that you create everytime you use it."
      *installing Ubuntu*

      Never ever heard anything about a virus ever again. Pentium 4 still runs like a champion, can do YouTube, Facebook, music, MP3 player management, YouTube downloads, etc. Everytime she wants do to something I'll tell her to google it. If she doesn't understand then I'll simply say "Well maybe computers aren't for you. You could always buy a Mac". Either way that's not my problem.

      --
      Here be signatures
    6. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by TavisJohn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Apple already has an App Store for their laptops/desktops. Apple could easily make their next OS ONLY install software from the app store. And the sick thing, is that the apple fan-boys and iReligious nutters will not only accept it, but PRAISE IT!

    7. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by oakgrove · · Score: 4, Informative

      IOS piracy is there, but it's not prevalent.

      I didn't say it was prevalent or not. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Do you have statistics? The person I responded to said that iOS is piracy free which judging from the links I gave is an uninformed joke.

      First, it requires you to jailbreak

      There are millions of jailbroken iOS devices. Cydia's business model is based on that fact and they rake in millions yearly. Jailbreaking is such a reality today that there is a specific exemption from the DMCA specifically for it.

      Then you have to patch the installer application to not verify IPA file signatures, this enables pirated IPAs to run.

      You make it sound like people have to break out a hex editor. Don't make me laugh. It's a one-click affair.

      Even then, it's obvious you're running a pirated binary - the OS requires a special set of keys to be present in the info.plist file so that it can run a decrypted binary (this same key is also present inside beta-test apps). Oh yeah, info.plist is in the same directory as the app itself, so it exists inside the sandbox and the app is perfectly free to access it at will. So it already knows it's pirated. (Many apps use this as it's basically foolproof - there's no way to avoid it).

      Matters none as the ipa's themselves are patched. And Installous makes it easier to download and install programs than the app store does. I have never seen a platform that the user has an easier time finding and downloading apps than iOS and installous.

      Contrast this with Android, where it seems piracy is basically prevalent

      Contrast what? That it is trivial to pirate on both platforms and any developer who thinks his precious is safe from Teh Piratez just because of the platform he writes it for is sadly deluded. As are you.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
    8. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by KahabutDieDrake · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's odd, because a big chunk of that junk is pre-installed by the OEM. The very same people you want to hand your entire computing environment over to, you know, so they can make sure it doesn't suck. Are you fucking kidding me?

      Just like any other environment, the walled garden is susceptible to crapware of varying degrees. Just because you are apparently too enamored with the idea to pay attention to the reality is no reason to throw away a perfectly good and more importantly FREE as in LIBRE environment.

      If the problem is retarded users, then fine, FIX THE FUCKING PROBLEM. If your solution is to lock down the platform and then only give users "approved" software... you are a tool.

      Maybe the paradigm shift we need is that not every moron needs a computer. You can fetch your email, stupid pictures and your friends status updates via any connected device. Maybe it's far past time to stop pretending that computers are anything other than highly specialized tools... that 75% of the population doesn't have the first clue how to operate.

    9. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by adonoman · · Score: 2

      Yeah, except that half the programs from that era went and modified your autoexec.bat or *.ini files in haphazard ways. Then they each had their own default location to save files to - often just c:\, or c:\docs, or even c:\windows! Then there's the fact that they all shared the same memory space, so one app gone rogue would take down everything..

      I'll take Windows 7's UAC and click-once installation any day.

    10. Re:Sadly, I think Apple might win on this one by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ideally, in a perfectly utopian world, you wouldn't need backups. You purchase the music, software, movie, or whatever one time, and it goes into your account somewhere on a secure server. Forever afterward, you can access the content you paid for. The move wouldn't even have to be stored on that server, only your "token" that licenses you to use the content.

      Part of my rationale for downloading music "illegally", is that I've paid for that music, several times over in some cases. It's not MY FAULT that the media has worn out. I paid for music, not vinyl, not tape, not even some optical format. Pay once, listen forever should be a standard in the entertainment and sofware world.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
  2. Old news for the rest of us by Squiddie · · Score: 2

    Yeah, well my Linux boxen have been doing that for ages. Windows is behind.

    1. Re:Old news for the rest of us by ArsonSmith · · Score: 4, Funny

      In Soviet Russia ISO images mount your.... never mind.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
    2. Re:Old news for the rest of us by powerlord · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heck, OSX has been able to Create ISOs from Disks, and mount them natively for at least the last 6-7 years (not sure if this feature was included in 10.0).

      Its an incredibly useful feature in troubleshooting, in a Remote VM environment, or for bringing along a DVD full of (legal) 'old school' games to play (on a convenient USB drive instead of as lots of disks).

      Its nice to see Windows catching up with the rest of the world.

      --
      This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  3. This is new.. really? by bigredradio · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Mounting up an ISO by double-clicking has not been available on Windows? This has become second nature for me on Linux. I guess I just don't spend enough time with Windows. ;-)

    --
    Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
    1. Re:This is new.. really? by jalefkowit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're using the term "third-party software" in a difference sense than bigstrat2003 was. You mean it in the sense of "anything other than the kernel". He/she meant it in the sense of "anything that didn't come with your distro". Big difference. And in this case your definition isn't as accurate, since from the user's perspective the question is "can I mount ISOs after installing the operating system without having to acquire any other tools?" And until this announcement the answer for Linux was yes, while for Windows it was no.

      --

      Read my blog.

    2. Re:This is new.. really? by JasterBobaMereel · · Score: 2

      If you count 3rd party software as anything beyond the bare OS, then Linux cannot boot ...and there is no such thing in Windows ...

      If you count it as the bare system as installed from CD/DVD (A fairer comparison) then Linux can do many more things than windows, it depends on the Distro ...but some have ISO mounting built into the file manager

      I you count what you can install from the system without paying extra (i.e. Windows Update, Package Manager) then Linux wins hands down ...

      This is simply another case of "Microsoft have finally noticed people are writing 3rd party apps to do something that should be in Windows, and so have folded it in..."

      The good news is they have done it, the bad news is that they took so long ...

      --
      Puteulanus fenestra mortis
    3. Re:This is new.. really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually mounting an iso image in linux is basically mounting the image like a drive with the loopback device as placeholder for ioctls.

      Mounting something is in the end a system call and by my definition part of the kernel and the core of the core of utilities.
      (mount command comes in a util package from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/)

      That means, that mounting an image is totally independent from any linux distribution and couldn't be less third party than io.sys from dos and its modern counterpart from windows.

      However clicking on a file in an ui can be considered third party/part of distribution ^^

  4. ISO mounting? by instagib · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Are they talking about

    mount FILE.ISO /media/iso -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0

    or is this something more advanced? If not, how is this news?
    And if optical media would be obsolete, why would one want to continue using ISO files?

    1. Re:ISO mounting? by bigstrat2003 · · Score: 2

      It's news because it's a feature that Windows has lacked.

      --
      "16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
  5. It really couldn't do this before? by macshome · · Score: 2

    I'm a little baffled Windows doesn't do this natively. I remember using Alcohol120 and what not back in the day, but I would have assumed image mounting would be in the OS already.

    I know on the Mac you can create, manipulate, and use all sorts of images without any add ons.

  6. CS101: Programming on paper by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even more scary is the possibility that [requiring all applications to have been digitally signed by a device's manufacturer] could become the model for not just tablets, but also PC's in the future.

    Then how would computer science education work? Would schools be able to afford $99 per platform per student per year "programmer's licenses", or would schools switch to a model preferred by E. W. Dijkstra in which all programming assignments are done on paper?

    About the only thing stopping this now is tradition and bandwidth limitations/download caps.

    Given the general failure to expand the single digit GB/mo cap for wireless (satellite and cellular) Internet access in the United States market, I don't see this happening as soon as some alarmists predict.

    For that matter, how many hardware developers will be making locked-down PC's that won't even let you install Linux without some hardware hacking?

    Given the general trend of opening up, from the BREW model (just slightly more open than a game console, must convince wireless carriers to carry the product) to the Xbox Live Indie Games/iPhone model ($99 per year plus 30% of sales, open to all adult developers in supported countries, approval rules are public) to the old Android model (locked bootloader, but "adb install" allowed and usually also "Unknown sources") to the new Android model promoted by HTC (unlocked bootloader), I don't see this happening as soon as some alarmists predict.

    1. Re:CS101: Programming on paper by Lumpy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Simple. CS needs to be more advanced.

      Computers 101 - introduction to your computer
      Computers 201 - introduction to bios programming
      Computers 301 - OS design HURD and Linux
      Computers 401 - Legal ramifications of owning a non-blessed computer and how to hide it from the InforMation Technology Ministry.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    2. Re:CS101: Programming on paper by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

      "First of all even Apple doesn't prevent you from writing code. XCode is free, and can compile native OSX code, and can run iOS code in an emulator."

      so where do I download a Linux or Windows version of this XCode?

      Oh wait, you have to buy OSX and a Apple device (MacMini) in order to do this. That is hardly free.

      and yes, I CAN write windows software under Linux or BSD. IT is a fair point.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  7. It's about time by milbournosphere · · Score: 2

    I've had to use third party tools to do this for a VERY long time. You'd think they would've built this functionality into Vista/7, considering that OS X and pretty much every flavor of Linux have had this for nearly a decade now...

  8. Once again, following Apple's footsteps by jht · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You know, I have to give Apple all these props (yes, my life is filled with iThings, but still), but once again they set the standard. Macs have been mounting ISO images and DMG files for the last decade - I was really surprised when Vista dropped without this basic native ability and even more so when it didn't make the cut for Windows 7. Sure, most PCs still ship with optical drives but it's been more convenient for years now to ship image files than .EXE installers or zip files in most cases. You'd think that Windows would have gained this ability before now.

    As said earlier in this thread, the App Store model now will begin to take over for most packaged software and for Windows as well. Linux users have downloaded from repositories for the better part of 20 years (ever since the RPM). Mac users have downloaded DMG installers forever, and now have an App Store. Retail software distribution is going down the toilet.

    The only wildcard is bandwidth capping - the carriers all want it, none of the users and none of the content providers want it. More and more things are going digital. Something's got to give, and within the next year or so we'll know which it is.
     

    --
    -- Josh Turiel
    "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
    1. Re:Once again, following Apple's footsteps by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

      it's been more convenient for years now to ship image files than .EXE installers or zip files in most cases.

      How exactly is an ISO 9660 file system image (.iso) more convenient than a Microsoft Installer package (.msi)?

      Retail software distribution is going down the toilet.

      Not entirely yet, but it will once wired broadband reaches more rural areas or once wireless broadband providers drop their single digit GB/mo caps. Until then, it'll take upwards of five months to download a full-size BD movie or PLAYSTATION 3 game over satellite or cellular Internet.

  9. Mounting as simple as clicking a file by Osgeld · · Score: 2

    which has also been moved to the dumb fuck ribbon

  10. Explain "Strong and Abusive DRM" by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it was a meek surrender on here without a whimper to some extremely strong and abusive DRM.

    Look, I was and am a staunch fighter against DRM.

    But that was mostly for media, because I wanted the ability to easily transfer files between devices. For music, Apple is the company that finally ended DRM. For that you should thank and support them, not curse them.

    For video the matter is different, but note that when it is up to Apple - for instance in the case of the WWDC videos for developers - there is no DRM present on the media. So plainly Apple would just drop DRM video if they could, but content providers have not seen the light yet. In fact Apple just dropped a more advanced use of Video DRM - TV rentals.

    Lastly we come down to applications, which is what you may be talking about. But here the DRM is a benefit to most people, because it ensures you have a signed application that you know has not been tampered with. It is about as un-restrictive as such a system could be - Apple mandates developers allow the application to be distributed across multiple devices, when some application developers would make you pay per-device if they could.

    So in what way is what little DRM Apple uses "abusive"? Please give clear examples.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Explain "Strong and Abusive DRM" by delinear · · Score: 2, Interesting

      For music, Apple is the company that finally ended DRM. For that you should thank and support them, not curse them.

      I keep seeing this quoted as gospel. I remember it far differently, in fact Apple publicly complained about DRM for a long time but did very little to leverage their massive buying power (they were basically the only player in town at the time) to rid us of it. It was only when several other big names in the industry started moving towards DRM-free that Apple seemed to realise there had been a sea-change in what customers wanted and, very late in the day, announced that they would follow suit. Of course they did it with the usual marketing elan that made it sound like it was their idea all along, but that's simply not the case if you look at the timelines.

      They did this to protect their relevance in the market place, not to give the customer a good deal (look at pretty much everything else they do to see what they really think of DRM), although this is an interesting take on events that suggests Apple's insistance on only supporting either their own DRM (which they were reticent to licence) or DRM-free on iPods is what drove the rest of the industry down the DRM free path. To say they did that to fight DRM would be skewed thinking though, in reality they just wanted to own the distribution model the way they do for Apps (and I'm sure a lot of what they learned with iTunes shaped the Apps model so that it was fully in their favour).

    2. Re:Explain "Strong and Abusive DRM" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Apple was offering DRM-free stuff before with iTunes Plus, which had (initially) all EMI tracks available for 30 more, DRM-free, and at double the quality (256Kbps). That was in May of 2007, several months before Amazon's store. In October, possibly in response or tied with Amazon's launch, they dropped the price of iTunes Plus content to the usual 99. By the time Amazon launched its store in France and Germany, all but the Japanese iTunes store had DRM-free music.

      Which isn't to say that it was all Apple that dragged DRM off of music. The point is that Apple publicly complained about it at length, and all indications point to the industry moving towards DRM-free at about the same time. The problem is it's impossible to tell what exactly was going on behind the scenes, because each one of these companies (Apple, Amazon, etc) had to negotiate separately with every record label. Was Apple trying to get licensing for every country that already had a store before DRM-freeing everything? Amazon didn't have this problem, as they launched with DRM-free and then expanded to other countries. Steve Jobs came out and wrote his Thoughts on Music (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/108499-thoughts-music-steve-jobs.html) calling for the end of DRM four months before iTunes Plus happened. But then, that was probably a strategic move in the middle of negotiations to make DRM-free happen anyway.

      In short, neither extreme is true.

    3. Re:Explain "Strong and Abusive DRM" by Karlt1 · · Score: 2

      keep seeing this quoted as gospel. I remember it far differently, in fact Apple publicly complained about DRM for a long time but did very little to leverage their massive buying power (they were basically the only player in town at the time) to rid us of it. It was only when several other big names in the industry started moving towards DRM-free that Apple seemed to realise there had been a sea-change in what customers wanted and, very late in the day, announced that they would follow suit. Of course they did it with the usual marketing elan that made it sound like it was their idea all along, but that's simply not the case if you look at the timelines.

      You remember incorrectly.

      1. The beginning of 2007, the music industry wanted Apple to license it's FairPlay DRM.
      2. Apple said no and alternatively, the music industry could let them and everyone else sell DRM free music. Steve Jobs posted his famous "Thoughts on Music" letter on 2/7/2007 (six months before the Amazon music store opened). This was discussed widely on the Internet and here on Slashdot.
      3. In return, the music industry wanted a large up front payment to protect against piracy losses and wanted variable (higher prices).
      4. Slashdot Wisdom (tm) was that Apple was "bluffing" and they never intended to sell DRM free music and that Apple knew the music industry would never go along with it.
      5. The labels slowly dropped the large up front payment requirement but still insisted on variable prices.
      6. EMI was the first to allow DRM free music and Apple introduced iTunes Plus.
      7. Apple introduced the iPhone but its contracts didn't allow music sells over cellular only WiFi
      8. All of the other stores gave in to the music labels, started selling DRM free music and variable prices but still could not dent iTunes lead.
      9. Apple wanted to sell music over the cell network so it gave in to variable pricing and started going DRM free.

  11. Matryoshka Software by Phleg · · Score: 4, Funny

    and in a year or two, it wouldn't be surprising if all software is made available as an ISO on a USB drive

    Why stop there? I plan on shipping my software by printing the ones and zeroes, faxing it to myself, scanning it in as a JPEG, and pasting that into a Word Document. Only once that's done I'll tarball the Word doc, encode it on an ISO filesystem, and finally write it to a FAT32 USB stick.

    --
    No comment.
  12. The future is here now, and it is better by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even more scary is the possibility that this could become the model for not just tablets, but also PC's in the future. About the only thing stopping this now is tradition and bandwidth limitations/download caps. The days of walking into Best Buy and buying a game or application and getting a physical copy of the software could well be numbered.

    You say that like it was a bad thing.

    The problem with your assertion tis this; what were you getting with the physical copy that was any different than you get via an online App Store like Steam?

    I mean, almost any game that is in a store is ALREADY laden with protection. And frankly that protection is often much more odious than what you get via Steam.

    The thing I am sad to lose is resale ability (really the ability to lend a game to a friend), but that lives on in consoles more strongly than in the PC world, and that model is even more locked down than the PC... so I don't see any DIFFERENT danger than what we have already in that regard.

    However I am annoyed at losing resale value, the features Steam grants are worth it to consider games as very expensive rentals instead of purchases.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  13. Re: Microsoft. Jack of all trades. Master of none by v1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "With a masterful nail in the optical disc coffin, Microsoft has announced that its new operating system will natively mount ISO disc images.

    "Masterful"? That'd be like Ford waiting till 2012 to add a reverse gear to their transmissions? I don't think "masterful" is the word I'd pick. "slow cluestick" maybe.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  14. Re:+1 realism by jedidiah · · Score: 2

    I remember Windows domination quite well.

    That's a walk in the park compared to a platform where the likes of GEM, Linux, and GCC can never even get installed.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  15. Once again, following Linux's footsteps by maztuhblastah · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know, I have to give Linux all these props, but once again they set the standard only to have Apple copy them and claim innovation. Linux boxes have been mounting ISO images and other image files for well over a decade now.

    --
    The real litigious bastards...
    1. Re:Once again, following Linux's footsteps by GlobalEcho · · Score: 2

      On the other hand, it was a crapshoot until well past 2005 whether any given Linux distro would properly automount a FAT32-formatted USB stick.

    2. Re:Once again, following Linux's footsteps by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Just for the record, Apple has has support for this since 10.1 was released September 25, 2001.

      As far as I can remember, linux distros at that time were hit and miss, and those that could mount isos, as far as I can recall, all required dropping to CLI to do so. None of them mounted ISO via a double click.

    3. Re:Once again, following Linux's footsteps by Pope · · Score: 2

      Oh, you mean like the Disk Copy image format from Apple's System 7, from 1991?

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  16. Re:Compressed Folders by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    And if ISO 9660 file system images are so "read-only", then how does packet writing work on an actual CD?

    Packet writing uses UDF, not ISO 9660. UDF was designed to allow incremental updates, ISO 9660 is read-only - if you want to append to an ISO 9660 filesystem then you need to create a multi-session disk which stores multiple ISO 9660 filesystems internally and looks through each one in order (newest to oldest) to find files.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  17. Will it go both ways? by Tapewolf · · Score: 2

    That's nice, but can it also image a CD to iso format, and snapshot disks and partitions as image files?

  18. Native development by tepples · · Score: 2

    Oh wait, you have to buy OSX and a Apple device (MacMini) in order to do this. That is hardly free.

    I think AC's point is that anyone who owns a Mac can program for a Mac and test on a Mac.

    and yes, I CAN write windows software under Linux or BSD.

    So how do you test your Windows software under Linux or FreeBSD without installing a copy of Windows into VirtualBox? Or do you want your software to rely on Wine bugs?

  19. Vendor lock-in by goldspider · · Score: 2

    Wasn't it stuff like this that got the anti-M$ crowd frothing about vendor lock-in and anti-competitive practices? Wasn't having to choose from multiple third-party sources for basic functionality once considered an advantage of Linux? How times have changed...

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  20. Fedora can do this already by Richard+W.M.+Jones · · Score: 2

    This is going to be a feature in Fedora 16 (it already works in earlier versions of Fedora, we're just polishing it). More screenshots.

    You can also mount and modify virtual machines securely (including Windows VMs and VHDs), using libguestfs and guestmount.

    Rich.

    --
    libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
  21. Obligatory XKCD by Que914 · · Score: 2

    http://xkcd.com/763/

  22. Re:Niiiice by FaxeTheCat · · Score: 2

    Just a clarification:

    VHD is Microsoft own virtual hard drive file format as used in their virtualization software.

    Both mounting and creation has been supported as far back as XP/2003 as part of MS Virtual Server (an extra install).
    From W2008/Vista, creating and mounting VHDs have been available in the OS, however, there is a need to use command line tools to create the files.
    The files can be mounted from disk manager in Vista/7 etc.

    One cool feeature that is not well known is that on Windows 7, you can boot from VHDs. This require Win7 as both installed on the disk (requires the bootloader from Win7) and only Win7 is supported in the VHD. May work with Win2008 R2 as well, but I have not checked.

  23. Unlike iOS, Android has Unknown sources by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just look at how quickly Apple's iPhone took off, with its walled-garden app store. And then Android came along, with the exact same concept, and it's been doing great too.

    Unlike iPhone, Android phones don't lock out applications obtained outside the Market. AT&T used to hide the "Unknown sources" checkbox until earlier this year when popular demand for Amazon Appstore forced AT&T to either reconsider or lose customers at contract renewal. But even AT&T phones still supported and continue to support adb install.

  24. ISO mounting was a WinXP power toy by kirkb · · Score: 2

    Those with short memories might forget that "Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel" was a free PowerToy that Microsoft released for WinXP. It got retired, and now a decade after its initial release, it's getting included into Win8. This is progress?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_CD-ROM_Control_Panel

    --
    Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
  25. You missed an item by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    You missed the part where AFTER:

    Music owners start selling non-DRM'd tracks outside of the iTMS.

    Came the followup item:

    Nobody buys from the competitors

    Even now that is mostly true, most tracks sold are from iTunes.

    It was only at that point that Apple had the leverage to convince the studios to let go of DRM in music, in exchange for which Apple let them have some pricing variance.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley