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This proceedure takes a Windows installation disk, converts it to a DAO image by removing the session, and saves the resulting ISO image suitable for attaching to a guest as a device so you can install Windows into the guest quickly.

Tool needed: IsoBuster (http://www.isobuster.com)

Note: You can make an ISO image with mkisofs but it won't be recognized by the guest.

Start IsoBuster
Put a CD in the CD/DVD drive

In IsoBuster...
Above the right panel, click the "Refresh" button.
In the left panel...
- Highlight the CD icon.
- On the highlighted CD icon...
- - Right click and select Extract CD <Image> > RAW (*.bin, *.exe).
- - (Indicate where to save CD.iso and, when extraction is done, CD.cue.)
In IsoBuster's menu: File > Open Image File.
(Navigate and open the CD.iso file saved above.)
In the left panel...
- Dig down into the CD icon to expose a Session 1 icon.
- Dig down into the Session 1 icon to expose a Track 01 icon.
- Highlight the Track 01 icon.
- On the Track 01 icon...
- - Right click and select Find missing files and folders.
- - Right click and select Extract Track 01 > Extract Raw but convert to User Data (*.tao, *.iso, *.wav).

The resulting Track 01.iso file should be somewhat smaller than the CD.iso file. Rename Track 01.iso to whatever you like but retain the .iso part. It is a disk-at-once (DAO) image. Attach the virtual CD to your guest and boot the guest. You should then see the familiar blue-screen Windows installation introduction. Enjoy.

PS: You might want to save CD.iso also (to serve as a backup for your Windows installation disk - any burning program can then burn a new copy).

This HOWTO is getting some views. Is it working for people (you)?

It apparently only works for CDFS formatted CDs, not UDF formatted CDs. For example, it apparently doesn't work for the Windows Defender Offline ISO (i.e., WDO_Media32.iso).

What I wrote about disk-at-once is apparently wrong as the ISO produced by my procedure still has a session. I confess that I'm a bit mystified regarding how & why it works. Do you have any info you can share?

Also, I'd like to be able to do this magic with mkisofs. Does anyone have highly detailed technical info about using mkisofs and what it does for particular command line switches? I'm not talking about what the command line help says, I'm talking about details that are probably only revealed in the source code.

Thanks. I'll sit back now and see what kind of responses I get.