VirtualDVD gives easy access to CD, DVD or Blu-ray images by mounting them as virtual drives, which means you'll no longer have to burn them to discs.

After a simple installation VirtualDVD adds a single virtual disc drive to Explorer. Right-click its system tray icon, select Virtual Devices, choose that drive then "Mount Image" and you'll be prompted for your disc image. The program supports plenty of formats, including CloneCD (*.ccd), CDRWin (*.bin), Cue Sheets (*.cue), CDImage (*.img), ISO (*.iso), BlindRead (*.bwt), BlindWrite (*.b5t; *.b6t), Alcohol 120% Image (*.mds;*.mdf), Disc Juggler (*.cdi), Instant CD/DVD (*.pdi), Compressed ISO (*.isz), Nero (*.nrg), CloneDVD (*.dvd) and CDSpace6 (*.LCD).

Once mounted, the disc becomes available in Explorer just as though it was a physical drive. And this can be customised to a degree via the usual Windows tools (you can change its region, drive letter and so on).

You're also able to add further virtual drives, if necessary. Right-click the system tray icon, select Preferences, and set "Count" to the number of devices you need (up to a maximum of 24).

One issue we noticed immediately is the almost total lack of documentation. There's nothing provided with the program itself, and the online help is just a list of features.

Still, to be fair VirtualDVD is so simple that you probably won't need any assistance - it's just a quick and easy tool which will give you speedy access to drive images.