Identification

• ISO is actually the image of a file, not any specific program, according to Indiana University's Information Technology Services. Most ISOs are stored on a CD or DVD in the ISO-9660 format. An ISO is most often used to copy media. Unlike the installation of a "normal" file, an ISO can also be mounted on a virtual drive, instead of opened.
  
  

Significance

• ISO images have an importance in the distribution method for several major operating systems, including Windows, Linux and DOS, according to NTFS.com. An ISO is especially significant for transferring exact copies of the image to rewritable discs and DVDs. Burning software almost always has an option to make a CD from an ISO image. You must burn the image instead of copying the files.
  
  

Benefits

• Using an ISO offers several benefits over other image transferring methods such as ZIP files and WINRAR archiving. You can transfer the ISO image as one single file, instead of many different ones, according to MalekTips. While most methods of file transfer effectively perform the same function, a single ISO image is more convenient than loading each component. In addition, ISO files do not require compression or uncompression.
  
  

Potential

• A new type of ISO, called a "hybrid ISO," allows a user to boot his computer using hard-disk media such as USB drives, according to Path Issue Tracking System (see Resource 1). Booting from flash media drives is a relatively new trick that requires having media that can support a boot and reconfiguring your BIOS, according to "How To Boot From A USB Flash Drive" on BootDisk.com. Booting off of flash media may be helpful when your hard drive fails (see Resource 2).
  
  

Considerations

• The ease and portability of an ISO image has led Internet pirates to adopt ISO as the standard for the illegal trading of intellectual property, according to "Software Piracy Exposed" by Paul Craig, Ron Honick and Mark Burnett (page 117). So long as a pirate can get hold of the finished version of a product, not a pre-release, the image can be copied and freely distributed on an "ISO site." Craig, Honick and Burnett also claim that, because games and software can be several gigabytes, it can also take many hours to upload larger ISO images (page 118).