Fix Mount or Unmount ISO Images option missing in File Explorer

Have you downloaded an ISO file online and realize that you cannot natively mount it on your Windows 10 PC for some reason?

Well, once again, we ran into such a problem, and the culprit was VLC. The last missing windows option that was supposed to be there but was missing – Fix Extract all missing when you right-click .zip in File Explorer – was also caused by VLC. Perhaps we ought to contact VLC developers because it seems the media player app is behaving rogue and commandeering things it should not.

Fix Mount ISO Images options missing

Looking at the screenshot below, you see we have a .iso file, but the default program for opening it is VLC. Now, that doesn’t seem right on so many levels. Starting with the fact that a .iso file is not a multimedia file for playback. Well, it could be, but usually, multimedia files don’t get stored in the .iso format. Instead, that is the format for storing application software files.

To fix the problem, we used the same procedure we used to fix ‘Extract All’ option missing in the File Explorer tab mentioned above.

Open Cortana – press the Start (Windows) Key and type Default apps. Open the default app option and scroll down to Choose default apps by file type.

Scroll down to .iso option on the left panel. In our case, VLC was the default app for opening these types of files. Click the VLC icon and change the option back to Windows Explorer.

Doing so will now – by default – allow windows to open .iso files using the Mount or Unmount ISO images options that is natively available on Windows 10.

How to Mount an ISO Image file

With the discrepancies now fixed, you can now Mount and ISO Image file easily on Windows 10. And you can do so without installing a 3rd party app since Microsoft natively baked this feature into Windows 10.

Simply click once on the .iso file, and on the ribbon on top of the File Explorer click the Disc Image Tools tab followed by Mount. Upon which, the file will open as if you have inserted a physical disc on your computer.

You can then proceed and open your ‘virtual disc’ in which you should find the .exe file you need to install the program on your computer.

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