Creating and Using ISO Images - a Layman's Guide

Disclaimer: I am not in any way, shape, or form, advocating or encouraging any illegal activities whatsoever, including those related to piracy. This how-to is intended for legal activities only.

Anyone trying to deal with torrent files and ISO images for the first time will know that it can be frustrating and take a great deal of time to figure out. However, figuring it out opens up a huge world of (perfectly legal) downloading (List). I am by no means an expert; the purpose of this article is to help others with little or no knowledge on the subject avoid the frustration that I experienced in trying to get torrents to work for the first time, in simple, non-technical language. If it sounds overly basic, it's because I'm assuming no prior knowledge. The platform I'm primarily referring to and using is Windows Vista, but the advice should be applicable to other platforms, especially other versions of Windows.

When trying to deal with torrents, the most important thing to think about is why the creator of the torrent included each file. It's unlikely that a file will be included with no purpose. That said, if you don't know what a certain file is, a quick search will usually fill you in.

The absolute first step is to read the instructions or help file. Usually these files are .txt files which are easily opened by any word processing program. But often the files are in .nfo format. Windows Vista doesn't immediately recognize this format- it tries to open it as a System File and you won't be able to open it. To fix this, simply open the file using a text program ("Open With...," browse programs to use and set to "Always use this program for this type of file," or run the program and open the file manually), I prefer WordPad for its simplicity. The help file will usually tell you how to use the torrent step-by-step.

From there it can seem a little complicated if you have no idea what you're doing, but at least for ISO images, hopefully this tutorial will help. You'll need to know what the files you're dealing with are, and you'll also need certain programs to help you out.

What is an ISO Image?