Daemon Tools

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This article is about the disk image emulator. For the collection of tools for managing Unix services, see daemontools.
DAEMON Tools

DAEMON Tools Pro running on Windows 7
Developer(s) Disc Soft Ltd.[1]
Stable release
  • Ultra: 2.1.0 / 14 November 2013 (2013-11-14)[2]
  • Lite: 4.48.1 / 28 October 2013 (2013-10-28)[3]
  • Lite for Mac: 2.1.0 / 15 January 2014 (2014-01-15)[3]
  • Pro: 5.4.0 / 17 October 2013 (2013-10-17)[3]
  • Net: 5.1.0.0187 / 24 January 2013 (2013-01-24)[3]
  • USB: 1.1.0 / 29 November 2012 (2012-11-29)[3]
Operating system Windows 98, Windows 2000 and later[4]
Available in 38 Languages with additional translation packs[5]
Type Virtual drive
License Proprietary
(various licenses)
Website www.daemon-tools.cc
Supported file types
b5t BlindWrite
b6t BlindWrite
bwt BlindRead
ccd CloneCD
cdi DiscJuggler
cue Cue Sheet
iso Standard ISO
isz Compressed ISO
mds Media Descriptor File
mdx Media Data eXtended
nrg Nero Burning ROM disc image
ape APE images
flac Free Lossless Audio Codec images
As of March 2012[6]

DAEMON Tools (short for Disk And Execution MONitor tools) is a virtual drive and optical disc authoring program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.[7]

Overview

DAEMON tools was originally a successor of Generic SafeDisc emulator and incorporated all of its features.[8] The program claims to be able to defeat most copy protection schemes such as SafeDisc and SecuROM.[9] It is currently compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. DAEMON Tools has a special mode for proper operation of copies of discs with advanced protection (SafeDisc, SecuRom and LaserLock, CDCOPS, StarForce and Protect CD), which are used on some discs with games.[10]

Editions

Five editions of the product exist: Ultra, Lite, Pro Standard, Pro Advanced, and Net. A feature comparison is given below.[11] Also the company provides two additional solutions for the data storage organization. DAEMON Tools USB[12] allows sharing different types of USB devices, and DAEMON Tools iSCSI Target[13] enables creating a server storage and sharing virtual or physical devices together with VHD.

Feature Ultra Lite Pro Standard Pro Advanced Net
License type Shareware FreemiumA / SharewareB Shareware Shareware Shareware
Maximum number of DT and SCSI virtual devices 32 4 16 32 32
Maximum number of IDE virtual devices 4 0 0 4 4
Command-line interface Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Image compression Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Image password protectionCYes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Image creationD Yes Extraction only; no preset profiles Yes Yes Yes
Burning images Yes Needs Astroburn Yes Yes Yes
Image collection's management Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Image editing Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Image splittingE Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Shell extensions No No Yes Yes Yes
Virtual device property monitoring Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Volume Mount PointsF Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Burning RMPS data on discs Yes No No Yes Yes
Image conversionD Yes No No Yes Yes
Mounting virtual hard disks (VHD) Yes No No No No
Installation over the network No No No No Yes
Image Catalog sharing No No No No Yes
iSCSI Server No No No No Up to 16 targets
Mounting images on remote computers Yes No No No Yes
Sharing disc drives on the network No No No No Yes
Notes
A. ^ Free for non-commercial use without technical support. Technical support and the right to use commercially may be purchased.[14][15]
B. ^ In Korea, Freemium license is not available since ver. 4.45.1.[16][17]
C. ^ Applies on to .mds and .mdx images.
D. ^ Supported output formats include .iso, .mds/.mdf and .mdx
E. ^ The ability to split an image files into multiple files of fxed maximum sizes. Not supported by DAEMON Tools Lite, as of 22 February 2012.[18]
F. ^ The ability to mount an image into a folder on an NTFS drive

File format

The default file format of DAEMON Tools is Media Data eXtended (MDX). MDX is a disc image file format similar to MDS/MDF images. It supports all of MDS/MDF format features except that all data is in one monolithic file only. The files of these types bear the filename extension of .mdx.[19][20]

MDX file contains metadata of original media - specifically the main physical parameters of disc, such as layer breaks, sessions, tracks and other. It could be described as being an archive file containing all data from a CD/DVD. It also supports data compression. MDX file includes the magic number "MEDIA DESCRIPTOR" at the beginning of the file.

Controversy

On 13 February 2012, one of DAEMON Tools components known as MountSpace became a subject of privacy concerns. MountSpace, a service-oriented component gathers and sends information about disc images used in DAEMON Tools to mountspace.com along with users' IP addresses. Although MountSpace can be disabled during installation, it is criticized for transmitting information despite being disabled and lacking a privacy policy at the time.[21][22][23][24] The initial discovery of the concerning issue is attributed to one Rafael Rivera of Within Windows blog.[21][23][24]

As of 20 February 2012, MountSpace service has a privacy policy.[25]

Related programs

Y.A.S.U.

Y.A.S.U.
Developer(s) sYk0
Stable release 1.6.9040 / 4 February 2009 (2009-02-04)
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Available in English
License Freeware
Website forum.daemon-tools.cc/f40/

YASU (Yet Another SecuROM Utility) is a very small tool that works as a SCSI-drive protector. It was created by sYk0 and can be used to hide emulated drives from SecuROM 7 and SafeDisc 4. YASU is a companion program for Daemon Tools and currently being hosted, supported and maintained by the Daemon Tools team. On March 4 of 2009, sYk0 announced development of Omen which is to succeed development of YASU.[26] As of January 2010, development of Omen has been abandoned.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Disc Soft Ltd.". Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  2. ↑ "Ultra Release notes history". 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "Release notes history". 
  4. ↑ "FAQ". Disc Soft Ltd. What are supported operating systems?. Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  5. ↑ Translation Packs
  6. ↑ "File Associations". DAEMON Tools Help. DAEMON Tools. Retrieved 23 November 2011. 
  7. ↑ "DAEMON Tools Lite for Mac 2 :: DAEMON-Tools.cc". 
  8. ↑ "New name of the The Generic Safedisc Emulator". 
  9. ↑ "Supported games and protections database". 
  10. ↑ "DAEMON Tools Lite 4.35.5 represents full Windows 7 support". 23 October 2009. Retrieved 3 November 2009. 
  11. ↑ "DAEMON-Tools.cc :: Products :: Compare". 
  12. ↑ "DAEMON Tools USB :: DAEMON-Tools.cc". 
  13. ↑ "DAEMON Tools iSCSI Target :: DAEMON-Tools.cc". 
  14. ↑ "FAQ: Is DAEMON Tools software free or not?". daemon-tools.cc. Retrieved 21 November 2011. "DAEMON Tools Lite is free for home and non-business use. In case you want to use DAEMON Tools in any organization, you need to buy a license." 
  15. ↑ "Installation". DAEMON Tools Lite Help. DAEMON Tools. Retrieved 21 November 2011. "[Inside third screenshot] Support is provided only for Paid License users." 
  16. ↑ "Daemon tool lite license problem". DAEMON Tools. Retrieved 24 June 2012. "Due to some changes in marketing strategy Korea is no longer among the countries for which a Free version of DAEMON Tools Lite available." 
  17. ↑ "DAEMON Tools Lite" (in Korean). DAEMON Tools. Retrieved 24 June 2012. 
  18. ↑ http://forum.daemon-tools.cc/f19/split-image-29200/
  19. ↑ "Glossary". DAEMON Tools Pro Help. DAEMON Tools. Retrieved 12 May 2011. "mdx / mds (Media Data eXtended / Media Descriptor Files) — these formats are developed by DAEMON Tools developers." 
  20. ↑ "File extension MDX: DAEMON Tools Media Data eXtended file". File-Extensions.org. 11 May 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2011. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Kovacs, Eduard (13 February 2012). "Daemon Tools Collects Image File Details, Even Without Permission". Softpedia (SoftNews Net SRL). Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  22. ↑ "Daemon Tools: Tool spioniert seine User aus". Chip.de (in German) (CHIP Xonio Online). 13 February 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Tyler, Holman (13 February 2012). "Daemon Tools knows what you mounted last summer". Neowin.net. Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Are you using Deamon Tools? They know what images you’re mounting.". Software in Action. Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  25. ↑ "Privacy Policy". MountSpace.com. 20 February 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2012. 
  26. ↑ Omen: The future of Anti-Blacklists is near... - THE DAEMON TOOLS FORUM
  27. ↑ Omen: The future of Anti-Blacklists is near... - Page 4 - THE DAEMON TOOLS FORUM

Further reading

External links

Optical discs
Hard disks
Floppy disks
Flash drives
CD-DA
Optical disc image software
Cross-platform
Windows
Macintosh
Unix-like
Virtual drive software
  • Virtual disk image
  • RAM disk
  • Mount
Free software
Proprietary software
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