How to mount a CD/DVD ISO in Windows 7

By far the best free ISO mounting tool out there is Pismo file mount.

Some highlights:

• Works great on Windows Vista/7 x64 (not natively x64 but completely compatible)
• Drives only exist when an ISO is mounted and are removed when there is no ISO mounted
• Small memory footprint
• Has simple minimalist right click shell integration
• Unattended installation
• No Branding or silly logos to speak of (very clean professional feeling program)
• Fully featured command line control that is automatically working right after unattended install
• Plus all the normal features you would expect from an ISO mounting tool
• Free for corporate use

Some things you will want to pay attention to though is that by default it will not mount the ISO to a drive letter but instead mount it to a UNC path which can cause some software installers to fail when installing from the mounted path. Just make sure you specify that you want Pismo to mount to a drive letter when you are doing the mount and it will work fine.

Here is the unattended install of SQL to demonstrate my real world use of Pismo.

SET MSDNIsoPath=\\itapp\ISO Library\MSDN
SET ScriptPath=%~dp0
SET ScriptPath=%ScriptPath:~0,-1%
SET MountPath=m:
SET pfmMount=pfm mount -m %MountPath%
SET pfmUnMount=pfm unmount

echo -Installing Pismo File Mount
"%ResourcePath%\pfmap-051.exe" /q

echo.
echo Install and configure Microsoft SQL Server 2005 
echo -Installing Standard Edition
%pfmMount% "%MSDNIsoPath%\en_sql_2005_std_x86_dvd.iso"
%MountPath%\Servers\setup.exe /settings "%ScriptPath%\Configuration\Microsoft SQL Server 2005.ini" /qb /norestart
%pfmUnMount%

Best answer: Install SQL Server 2008 R2.

I tried all of these solutions and they all failed. R2 installed perfectly, the first time.