IsoFoundry

Open source disc burning, imaging & bootable USB suite for Windows 10 22H2 / 11 (x64): one dark window with a grid of tasks, in the spirit of AnyBurn Pro — plus a full command line for every task. Free, offline, no telemetry.

TL;DR

IsoFoundry is a single free Windows program for working with CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, disc image files (like .iso) and bootable USB drives. You pick a job from a grid of big buttons — burn a disc, copy one, turn files into an image, check an image for errors — or run the same job from the command line. The current release (1.0.1) covers disc-image tools (create, browse, extract, edit, convert, mount, checksum and verify against known-good hash lists), bootable USB, audio conversion, disc burning, ripping and copying, and spanning backup. Disc, USB and audio hardware paths are proven against simulated drives and disk-image files, and stay Unverified on real hardware until field reports arrive (see Status). Nothing in IsoFoundry needs the internet, and it never sends data anywhere.

Status

1.0.1 (2026-11-08) is the current release; 1.0.0 was the first stable release. Hardware paths stay Unverified until real-drive reports arrive; see docs/LIMITATIONS.md and AUDIT.md.

• 1.0.1 — patch: opening a CHD with a hostile header no longer aborts the program (AUDIT B-11); documentation refresh. No feature changes.
• 1.0.0 — the 0.9.0 feature set promoted with no feature changes: image tools, bootable USB, audio conversion, burning, ripping/copying, spanning backup.
• 0.9.0 — M6 integration plus the RC pass: spanning backup/restore with a catalog on every span, auto-action on disc insert, shell completion scripts, Explorer verbs, an opt-in update check, MusicBrainz CD lookup, completion actions (sound, notification, shutdown), failure drills, accessibility statement and measured budgets.
• 0.5.0 — M4 burning plus M5 ripping and copying through the if-drive layer (IMAPI2 burning, MMC/SPTI raw reading): burn image/files/MP3/video, erase, drive info, disc → image with dump reports, disc → disc, secure audio ripping with AccurateRip checksums, audio CD burning, surface scans and recovery. Every flow also runs against a built-in simulated drive (--fake), the test gate for these milestones; no burn or rip has run on real hardware yet, so those paths are Unverified.
• 0.4.0 — M2 USB and M3 audio together (0.3.0 was never released separately): Create bootable USB, Install Windows to USB, and batch audio conversion with tags and ReplayGain. USB is tested end-to-end against disk-image files; writing a physical disk and booting from it are still to be confirmed. MP3 needs libmp3lame.dll at runtime; AAC uses Windows Media Foundation; both encode paths are Unverified on real hardware.
• 0.2.0 — M1 image toolkit (create, browse, extract, edit, convert, mount, checksum, verify) in task windows and on the command line.
• 0.1.0 — M0 shell: main window, command line and elevated helper.
• Next — 1.x: multiboot USB, Spanish UI, and a native Windows 11 context menu. FAT/VHD image editing, Xbox XISO support, and the USB-to-image task window are implemented after 1.0.1; see the roadmap.

What the program does today

• Main window — a 21-task grid (owner-drawn buttons with split-button menus; tasks that need administrator rights carry a shield mark), menus for Task / Options / Help, tooltips on every control, full keyboard navigation, a visible focus ring, a high-contrast palette, Per-Monitor DPI v2 scaling, a dark title bar, and window placement that is saved and checked against your monitors. One instance at a time.
• Command line — also as the console twin isofoundry.com, so shells wait for it and capture its output: --version, list (every task, its CLI name, and when it ships), helper-check [--elevated], report --out FILE (a redacted drive report for bug reports), and clean. Global --json, --dry-run and --verbose/--debug options. The image commands below all work; tasks from later milestones answer "not implemented yet" (exit code 40) until their milestone ships.
• Elevated helper — isofoundry-helper.exe does the few jobs that truly need administrator rights. It talks to the main program over a named pipe restricted to you, Administrators and SYSTEM, checks the calling process, and uses a per-session nonce with typed messages only.
• Settings & data — versioned TOML settings with atomic writes (an unreadable settings file is quarantined, never silently overwritten), local logs, and a portable mode: put an IsoFoundry.portable file next to the program and everything stays in data\ beside it.
• Drive reports — Help → Export drive report writes a redacted JSON report you can attach to a "Drive report" issue, which is how real-drive compatibility gets confirmed (see Hardware compatibility).

Image tools

These jobs run from the task windows and the command line:

• create-image — build an ISO from files and folders: ISO 9660 + Joliet + UDF 1.02 in one image sharing a single copy of the data, files over 4 GB, El Torito boot entries for BIOS (optional boot information table) and UEFI. --fs xdvdfs (or xiso) creates an Xbox XISO. Written to a .part file and renamed only when complete, so a cancelled build never leaves a half-written image.
• image-info — an image's container format, tracks, file systems, label and boot entries; recognizes XDVDFS/XISO, FAT, and fixed/dynamic VHD containers.
• extract — copy files out of an image (everything, or one file/folder), renaming names Windows cannot store, and keeping nothing half-written on cancel. XISO browsing and extraction also work in the GUI browse task; raw FAT12/16/32 and fixed/dynamic VHDs containing supported FAT volumes are supported too.
• edit-image — add, remove, rename, create folders, and change the label, saved as a new image. FAT12/16/32 floppy and primary MBR volumes can be edited while retaining their image size and boot/partition sectors; fixed/dynamic VHD inputs are saved back as the same VHD type. Per-file timestamps and attributes reset. XDVDFS/XISO images remain read-only.
• convert-image — any readable image to ISO, BIN/CUE, CloneCD (CCD/IMG/SUB) or CHD.
• checksum — CRC32, MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 in one pass; --dat also writes a Logiqx-style .dat hash file.
• verify --dat — look a file's hashes up in a known-good .dat list (for example a redump list) and report match or no match.
• compare — byte-for-byte comparison of two files.
• mount / unmount — mount an image read-only with Windows' built-in virtual disk support; other formats are converted to a temporary ISO first, which is removed on unmount.

Formats: ISO 9660 (with Rock Ridge names), Joliet, UDF 1.02–2.60 (physical, sparable and metadata partitions), XDVDFS/Xbox XISO (browse, extract and create), FAT12/16/32 raw floppy or primary MBR partitions, and fixed/dynamic VHD 1.0 containers with FAT12/16/32 (browse, extract and edit); multi-extent files, El Torito boot catalogs (BIOS and UEFI). CD images: BIN/CUE (single and multi-file; MODE1, MODE2 and audio tracks), CloneCD CCD/IMG/SUB, sheetless raw .bin/.img, and MAME CHD v5 — reading zlib/cdzl discs and writing CD (cdzl) and DVD (zlib) CHDs whose SHA-1s match chdman 0.264 byte for byte on the test images. Nero NRG and Alcohol MDS/MDF are read-only and marked unverified. Raw sector ECC/EDC generation and checks, and Q-subchannel generation, are included. Known format limits are listed in docs/LIMITATIONS.md.

USB tools

• bootable-usb — turn an ISO into a bootable USB drive: partition it (MBR or GPT), format FAT32 and copy the image's files, or copy the image byte-for-byte in raw mode with an optional SHA-256 verify afterwards. Its Save USB drive to image file variant reads a physical disk or disk-image file byte-for-byte, with an optional byte limit; it is also available as usb read.
• install-windows-usb — the same write with Windows installer layouts: MBR+FAT32 (default), GPT+FAT32, or GPT+NTFS for install images over the FAT32 file limit. The boot files are Microsoft's own, copied unchanged from the ISO, so Secure Boot keeps working.

Writing is guarded: the system disk, the boot/pagefile disk and fixed disks are refused, and a target with mounted volumes or over 64 GB needs a typed ERASE confirmation. The engine is tested against disk-image files (the VHDX route); physical disks are Unverified until exercised on real hardware.

Audio tools

• convert-audio — batch-convert audio files between formats, from the task window or the command line. Decoding covers WAV, FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Opus and AAC/M4A; encoding covers WAV, FLAC, MP3 (through libmp3lame.dll, loaded at runtime — never bundled) and AAC/M4A (through Windows Media Foundation). Tags are carried across, and ReplayGain can be measured into the output's tags or baked into the samples. Opus and Ogg Vorbis encoding is not offered yet — there is no permissive pure-Rust encoder for either; see the limitations.

Burning

• burn-image, burn-files, burn-mp3, burn-video, erase, info — the burning tasks, in windows and on the command line, all through the if-drive layer (IMAPI2). Files burns can append a session to an appendable disc or close it; image burns can simulate (validation only — IMAPI2 has no test-write) and verify. Verify after burn performs a real digest comparison on the simulated drive; on the IMAPI path it is reported as unavailable until the M5 read-back work lands. --fake runs any of these against the simulated drive, no burner needed.

Ripping and copying

• copy-to-image, copy-disc, rip, burn-audio, surface-test, recover — the M5 tasks, in windows and on the command line. Ripping a disc writes the image plus a dump report and a .dat hash file (raw rips add a CUE sheet; subchannel capture is optional). Audio rips are secure by default — every sector is read twice and the reads must agree — and land as WAV, FLAC or MP3 with AccurateRip checksums in the rip log. The surface test reads every sector once and grades the disc; recovery rips tolerantly and extracts what the filesystem still gives up, naming the files the bad sectors damaged. On the command line --fake reads a simulated source disc; in the windows the test drive does the same job.

Backup and integration (0.9.0)

backup FOLDER packs a folder onto as many discs as it needs — one ISO per span, burned spans with a prompt per disc, or a rehearsal on the simulated drive — with the full catalog and a SHA-256 for every file on every span. backup-restore rebuilds the folder from span folders or ISOs and verifies every checksum. The same work lives in the Backup task window.

Around the edges: completions prints shell completion scripts, explorer-verbs adds right-click Checksum / Image info entries for image files, check-update asks GitHub for the newest release (only when run, or on start if you opt in — nothing in IsoFoundry talks to the network unasked), disc insert can open the right task window (Options menu), and ripping an audio CD records its MusicBrainz and freedb disc IDs in the rip log, with an opt-in MusicBrainz lookup for real track titles.

Command line

Run commands as isofoundry … or isofoundry.com … (calling isofoundry.exe directly works, but the shell won't wait for it). No command opens the window.

isofoundry list                                   Every task, its CLI name, and when it ships
isofoundry report --out report.json               Redacted drive report for a GitHub issue
isofoundry create-image C:\Files --out disc.iso --label MYDISC --boot-efi C:\boot\bootx64.efi
isofoundry image-info disc.iso
isofoundry extract disc.iso --out C:\Out --path Docs/manual.pdf
isofoundry edit-image disc.iso --out disc2.iso --add Extras=C:\Extras --remove Docs/old.txt
isofoundry convert-image game.cue --out game.chd
isofoundry checksum disc.iso --dat disc.dat
isofoundry verify disc.iso --dat redump.dat
isofoundry mount disc.iso
isofoundry unmount disc.iso
isofoundry usb list                                Every disk, and whether it is safe to write
isofoundry usb write linux.iso --disk 2 --yes      Bootable USB: copy the image's files (MBR; add --scheme gpt)
isofoundry usb write linux.iso --disk 2 --mode raw --verify --yes
isofoundry usb read --disk 2 --out stick.img       Copy a USB drive back to an image file
isofoundry windows-to-usb win11.iso --disk 2 --yes  Windows installer USB (add --layout gpt-ntfs for a big install.wim)
isofoundry convert-audio *.flac --to mp3 --bitrate 192 --replaygain   Batch-convert audio (tags carried across)
isofoundry burn-image game.iso --fake                 Burn an image (simulated drive)
isofoundry burn-files D:\Photos --drive E: --yes      Burn a folder to the disc in E:
isofoundry clean --dry-run                        Show what would be removed; change nothing

Global options: --json (machine-readable output), --verbose / --debug, --dry-run, --yes. Exit codes are documented in isofoundry --help (0 ok, 1 error, 2 usage, 3 cancelled, 10 no drive/media, 13 verify mismatch, 20 elevation denied, 40 not implemented yet, and more).

Screenshots

All captures are from real runs on a real Windows desktop. No placeholder images are used.

The 0.2.0 main window — the 21-task grid:

Create image — files/folders, label, optional boot images:

Browse / extract image — contents and extraction:

Edit image — stage changes, save as a new image:

Convert image — ISO, BIN/CUE, CloneCD or CHD:

Checksum — hashes, .dat writing and verification:

Requirements

• Windows 10 22H2 or Windows 11, x64. Releases ship x64 only.
• No runtime prerequisites — the release builds are self-contained native executables.
• Administrator rights are asked for only by the tasks that need them, with the reason shown first.
• Disc features need an optical drive, obviously — but see Hardware compatibility: they are developed against a simulated drive.

Install

Download from Releases — every release carries just one installer and one portable zip:

• IsoFoundry-v<version>-x64-Setup.exe — installs for you only (no administrator rights) or for all users
• IsoFoundry-v<version>-x64-Portable.zip — unzip and run; settings stay in data\ beside the program

Check downloads against SHA256SUMS.txt. Builds are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn on first run.

Configuration

Settings live in a versioned TOML file in the program's data folder (portable builds: data\ beside the program; installed builds: your per-user data folder). Options today cover log detail, the finish sound and the window placement; the data folder can be opened from Options → Open data folder. isofoundry clean removes settings, logs and reports (--dry-run lists them first, --yes skips the confirmation). There is no account, no sync and nothing to sign into.

Build from source

You need the Rust toolchain (Rust 1.82 or newer; the workspace is edition 2021).

# Official builds: GitHub Actions, MSVC x64 (static CRT)
# Local build without Visual Studio:
rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu

Local GNU-toolchain builds are a convenience path; the published releases are the MSVC builds from CI.

Project structure

Crate	What it holds
crates/isofoundry	The app: Win32 window, task grid, CLI (isofoundry, plus isofoundry-cli and isofoundry-portable entry points)
crates/isofoundry-helper	The elevated helper process and its named-pipe server
crates/if-image	Disc images: ISO 9660/Joliet/UDF read & write, BIN/CUE, CCD, NRG, MDS, CHD, conversion, editing, El Torito
crates/if-hash	CRC32/MD5/SHA-1/SHA-256 in one pass; Logiqx/redump .dat read & write
crates/if-core	Shared core: settings, paths, logging, jobs, IPC, drive reports, UI strings

Tests

cargo test --workspace

The image test suite runs against real fixture images in crates/if-image/tests/fixtures/ (plain, Joliet/Rock Ridge, bootable and UDF ISOs, CD and DVD CHDs) and covers reading, writing, conversion and editing end to end — including the byte-for-byte SHA-1 match against chdman for written CHDs. Disc burning is tested against a simulated drive; see docs/TESTING.md.

Hardware compatibility

Disc features are developed against a simulated drive — the developer has no optical drive. Real-drive results come from users: Help → Export drive report, then open a "Drive report" issue with it attached. Confirmed drives and results are tracked in docs/COMPATIBILITY.md. USB features are tested against attached VHDX disks and QEMU boot only; real flash hardware is Unverified.

Privacy & security

• Works fully offline; no telemetry, no ads, no accounts. Network features (metadata lookup, AccurateRip, update check) are off until you enable them, and none exist yet in 0.1.0.
• Administrator rights are used only through the helper, whose pipe accepts connections only from your user account, Administrators or SYSTEM, verifies the calling process, and speaks typed messages with a per-session nonce.
• IsoFoundry does not remove or bypass copy protection (CSS, AACS, BD+, game-disc protections), and does not author or transcode video — it only burns existing VIDEO_TS / BDMV folders. Protected discs will fail or copy without working protection.

Limitations

The honest list lives in docs/LIMITATIONS.md and is kept current every release. Headlines: no task runs a real drive yet in the released build; UDF virtual (VAT) partitions can't be read; CHD support covers the zlib/cdzl codecs (LZMA/FLAC/Huffman CHDs need a chdman re-encode first) and no parent/delta CHDs; NRG and MDS/MDF are read-only, first session only; editing an image rewrites it as ISO 9660 + Joliet + UDF 1.02, so Rock Ridge permissions and UDF 2.x extras of the source are not kept; mounting a non-ISO image uses a temporary converted ISO.

Roadmap

The 0.x milestones shipped as public pre-releases; 1.0 (2026-11-08) is the first stable release — every 1.0 task works, tested and documented.

Milestone	Release	Scope
M0 Shell	0.1.0 ✅	Window, task grid, CLI skeleton, settings, logs, elevated helper, packaging
M1 Image tools	0.2.0	Create / browse / extract / edit / convert / mount images, checksums + .dat, verify — released in 0.2.0
M2 USB	0.4.0	Bootable USB (GPT/MBR, UEFI/BIOS), Windows installer layouts, install Windows to USB, USB ↔ image
M3 Audio convert	0.4.0	Decode/encode pipeline, tags, batch convert, ReplayGain
M4 Burning (IMAPI2)	0.5.0	Burn image and files, multisession, erase, verify after burn
M5 Disc & ripping (MMC)	0.5.0	Disc → image (raw + subchannel), disc → disc, secure audio ripping, audio CD burning, surface/quality scans, recovery
M6 Integration	0.9.0	Spanning backup, auto-action on disc insert, Explorer verbs, opt-in update check, MusicBrainz, completion actions
RC / 1.0	0.9.0 / 1.0	Audit pass, failure drills, accessibility pass, measured budgets, release
1.x	—	Multiboot USB, Spanish UI, native Windows 11 context menu
2.0	—	Windows ISO customization integrated from WinISOPilot

Full detail: docs/roadmap.md.

Docs

Architecture · Decisions · Limitations · Testing · Compatibility · References · Design tokens · Changelog · Audit · Credits · Description

License

MIT. See LICENSE. Third-party notices in CREDITS.