Hi, Paddy -

I use a free program called Image Burn to create the ISO and then I use another free program called Magic Disc from Magic ISO, which I did pay for.

Ever since I started doing that, it has made my life so much easier. When I go to my parents' house and have to help them with troubleshooting their computer issues or upgrading their software, I just grab the external USB drive and don't have to worry about carrying all those CD's.

It took awhile to go through everything and copy it, but once done, it's done. I basically have a folder for each category of software (Music, Office Apps, Utilities, Games, etc) and then a separate folder for each application, or suite of applications (for example, all my PGMusic stuff is under PGMusic). Each folder clearly identifies the application name and then in parenthesis I have the username and license code if required. If the license code is too long to fit in the folder name, I put 'see license.txt' and i can copy/paste from there.

I also use a similar technique for audio CD's, but I use Nero for that. You can't create an ISO of an audio CD, but you can create an image of the CD using Nero's proprietary .NRG format. MagicDisc mounts those as virtual CD-ROM's as well. I have my CD images on another external USB drive and if I want to rip a song from the CD (either WAV or MP3), I just mount the CD as a virtual drive and tell my ripping software which drive it is. It gets treated just like a regular CD drive, just a lot faster.

Lots of options...

John

Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD
Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA

BB2025/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK

http://www.sus4chord.com