Best way to mount an image in Windows 7 64-bit

virtual clone drive, howto is here

OK, there's a lot of them out there and I've tried them all. WinCDEmu is completely seamless within the Windows Explorer environment. Want to mount an image? Just right click on the file and select a drive letter and it's done. You can install it as a driver or you can just use the standalone version. This is by far the best one other there and best of all, it's free!

I'm a big fan of portable apps that don't need to be installed and leave virtually no footprint. WinCDEmu is an open source, portable app that works in Windows 7 64 bit (that's what I'm running). I like it because it only temporarily "installs" its drivers when you actually launch the app, so there's no additional overhead when the software is not being used.

It doesn't have the windows Explorer or context menu bells and whistles that some of the other offerings have, and it could really benefit from a drag-and-drop update. But other than the minor inconvenience of having to go through a file dialog to mount your images, it works great.