You have a plethora of options of software available all over the Internet to choose from, which can mount an iso image file to a virtual drive. However, to mount ZIP, RAR, and 7z Archives as a virtual drive, fewer options exist.
Here in this risewindows article, we have brought you WinArchiver software used to mount an archive file as a virtual drive.
WinArchiver Virtual Drive for Windows 11 and 10
WinArchiver supports formats like ZIP, RAR, and 7z, which can be mounted as a virtual drive, and very few Windows users are aware of it. You can use it to mount every type of CD/DVD image and can compress archives on a virtual CD-ROM.
If you want to access files from a virtual disc, you can do it using the WinArchiver Virtual Drive application, and you won’t even have to use the physical CD/DVD. In today’s era, you will find that most computer systems come without a physical CD-ROM since they are almost outdated. That is why this software proves to be of great use in a case where you have a compressed file downloaded from the internet and want to mount it on a CD/DVD ROM without actually having to burn it onto a physical CD/DVD.
Now there are other alternatives available, such as WinCDEmu, that can be used instead of WinArchiver Virtual Drive. Still, it is supportive of the formats like ZIP, RAR, 7Z, etc., making it stand out among others. You can run compressed archives without actually extracting them to a folder on your hard disk. It helps you access a larger file’s contents in case you’re running short on storage. Suppose you have an 11GB file that you have downloaded and extracted on your computer. This file is going to occupy 11GB of your hard disk space. And compressing such a large file will take double its space. It is recommended that you use a virtual drive to save your space.
WinArchiver Virtual Drive can be compared to any other ISO file mounting software. After installing it on your computer, select one or multiple virtual drives and mount the desired files onto those drives. You can also enable it to start a system startup.
Mounting an Archive File
Now that we have gone through the why of it, let us get to the next part of this article, i.e., the why of it. Mounting an archive file on a virtual drive is a pretty simple process. First of all, you need to download the software to your computer. After installation, find it in the
After you complete that, set the number of virtual drives you want to create (minimum being 1 and maximum being 23) and click on
Next, you must follow the path to the desired archive file you want to mount. Right-click on the file and go to WinArchiver > Mount > Drive Letter. The selected file will now mount on the virtual drive.
Similarly, to un-mount the virtual drive, right-click on the drive letter. You will find it in File Explorer and select “Eject.”
Download WinArchiver Virtual Drive
WinArchiver does what it says. As in, it works with Microsoft OS irrespective of the operating system (Win 11, 10, 8, 7, Vista, and XP) as it personally tests. Visit m the official website to get it downloaded for your computer.
You can also check out Pismo File Mount. Using this software, you can mount ZIP, ISO, CISO, CFS, and PFO files as Virtual Folder and Virtual Drive.
That is it.
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Also, read How to Install Windows 11 on VirtualBox Virtual Machine?