Virtual CloneDrive

This is the best Optical Drive emulation in existence right now (in my opinion). I used to use Alcohol, but they started wanting money. I used Daemon Tools, but they added spy/mal/adware. So now I turn back to ElaborateBytes and SlySoft. These developers really know how to please.

Virtual CloneDrive has a lot going for it. From great emulation to a humble price tag (i.e. free), you can expect the unexpected. The main selling point for this is that it is from a company I trust, and it is free (cause I'm poor). This thing is easy to install, and easy to use. It isn't very complex or bloated with features you probably wont use. It has a little tray icon that starts up when windows does and hides out in your task bar. You can turn this off, but I've stopped caring about programs that hide down there since Windows 7.

A potential downside, it does install its own drivers on your computer. While this isn't a big deal, it does bother some people.

I'm just waiting for Microsoft to figure out that people really do want to emulate CD Drives so they don't have to burn a disk image every time! It was kind of them to include the ability to burn ISO files natively in Windows 7. But seriously. Why waste a disk unless you are giving it to a friend or loading a new OS?

Virtual CloneDrive can be found here: http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html