I recently discovered that the great program Daemon Tools (CD/DVD emulator for image files) now has a pay-for alternative (Pro) to the free version (Lite). I decided to check it out because I imagined it would have lots of great new features, I especially wanted a “mount with deamon tools” shell extension (for when you right-click on any file in explorer). This of course had been implented in the Pro version, but it did not work with the .img file format and in the forums the developers declared that they won’t be implenting it ever. So I decided to take on this problem myself. Also, I was gonna do it in the Lite version, since the Pro version didn’t seem to have any good features worth paying for (the only extra thing was an annoying GUI really).
Deamon Tools Lite (and Pro) have command line switches. These can be used to create scripts, .bat files, shortcuts, whatever you want. One of these switches is particularly interesting: -mount.
-mount
allows mounting images from command line (or shortcut).
Syntax is: -mount [n], [path]
where ‘n’ means DVD-ROM device number (’0′ - ‘3′ allowed) and ‘path’ is the full path to the image file.
Example: daemon.exe -mount 0,"c:\My Images\nameofimage.cue".
Do not forget to set the path in quotes if it contains spaces!
How to add a shell extension for an image file to mount with daemon tools:
In Explorer goto Tools -> Folder Options and select the File Types tab. Select the file type you want to enable this for (for example .img) and press Advanced. Press New. As Action type in:
Mount with Daemon Tools
and as Application type in:
"C:\Program Files\DAEMON Tools Lite\daemon.exe" -mount 0, "%1"
That is, if that’s where your daemon tools installation is located. If you installed to another directory, you need to adjust the above line to fit your installation. When done editing, press OK three times to get out of the menus.
Now there’s just one last step before you’re done. Right-click on your Daemon Tools tray icon and goto Options and disable Secure mode. This will disable Daemon Tools asking you if “it’s ok to mount?” each time you try to mount an image file.
That’s it! Now you should be able to right-click on any .img file and select “Mount with Daemon Tools”. I suggest you also add this Action to the following file types: .cue, .iso, .nrg, .mds, since those are fairly common.
Update: A helpful commenter, Dmitry, put this together in a .reg file for the lazy admins out there who don’t want to do this manually. 
12 responses so far ↓
1 nka // Mar 28, 2008 at 8:19
Hi, I tried your fix, however I received the following error:
Error in command line, and unable to mount image. I tried it for .iso
What am I doing wrong?
2 Mazza // Jun 8, 2008 at 4:48
Thanks mate, that worked great!
Just to note, change the curly quotes to standard ” ” and you are good to go (you need them for the Application Type, but NOT for the Action
3 Cookie // Jun 14, 2008 at 13:09
Thanks for the info, but I have a problem when mounting the .img file I get 2 errors the first is ‘error in command line’
after clicking ok to this the mount process seems to start then I get the error
‘Unable to mount image. Unable to access image file’
although I can mount the image in Daemon tools the usual way. Any suggestions?
Thanks Paul
4 pirun // Jun 18, 2008 at 15:40
I just google how to mount image with shell and found here.
Thanks a lot.
5 dinx // Jul 14, 2008 at 18:58
How would you make a shell integration with Vista?
6 Krof // Jul 23, 2008 at 15:25
Mazza: I didn’t notice that, Thanks! (It has now been fixed in the post)
nka & Cookie: The reason is probably what Mazza has already pointed out. I made a mistake in the writing of this post, sorry!
dinx: I have no idea, I’m still using XP
7 Dmitry // Sep 24, 2008 at 16:33
Thanks for the mini-guide! I’m currently an admin for a small office. We have a large collection of disc image files of all the software we use on a daily basis + backups of hard drives and such. It really was a pain having to go through DT to mount an image, and going through the manual labour of the guide is a bit too much. So after poking around the registry a bit I came up with this:
http://rapidshare.com/files/148017970/Assign_filetypes_to_DAEMON_Tools.zip.html
It’s a simple registry key file that, with a double click, will add the “Mount with Daemon Tools” for all extensions Daemon Tools is capable of handling. Hope it helps other lazy admins out there!
8 Dmitry // Sep 24, 2008 at 16:42
By the way, the key assumes you have the tools installed at C:\Program Files\DAEMON Tools\. If you have it installed elsewhere simply make an edit to the keyfile and off you go.
9 Krof // Sep 28, 2008 at 16:03
Great idea Dmitry!
I’ll mirror it here in case the rapidshare link goes down:
http://krof.net/blog/wp-content/Assign_filetypes_to_DAEMON_Tools.zip
(I opened it up and it looks good, I haven’t tried it myself though).
10 Dmitry // Sep 29, 2008 at 16:24
Kick ass! I’ve already used the reg file on most machines in the office and it works just fine. I have the older “non-Lite” Daemon Tools installed everywhere.
11 rolf mao // Oct 29, 2008 at 15:51
OK, need help with this for vista, how do I add attributes? -mount 0, “%1″. I don’t know how to do that part in VISTA.
The reg file that Dmitry and Krof posted does not work for me, at least not in Vista.
12 Krof // Oct 29, 2008 at 16:28
rolf mao: The registry files in Vista most likely use a different syntax - or maybe it’s just that the location of the settings we wanna change here have changed.
I don’t run vista myself, so I have no way of altering the .reg file for Vista. Maybe someone else out there knows how to do this stuff for Vista.
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