[Guide] If N.A. bugs out with "cannot mount image" on Windows 10

Hi gang!

First of all: Happy Holidays! I hope your festivity season is going as well as it's going for me. If you would have told me one year ago that I would now own 2 Maschine controllers (MkIII & Mikro MkIII) and that I would actually adore them as well then I wouldn't have believed you for one second, but here we are! My Mikro somewhat "saved" Christmas Nah, nothing that drastic but it was a good way to play some Christmas carols backed up with the full Maschine library, Absynth 5 & Komplete Start (the latter also for demonstrative purposes)

But when I was installing some stuff on my laptop using Native Access I too got hit with some dreaded "cannot install" errors. Which I resolved, but I can easily imagine that this is not an easy task for casual Windows 10 users so I kind of felt obligated to post this (no joking!).

The problem

Native Access is basically a 'front panel' which allows us NI users to easily download, start and then remove the installers. And on a side-note: I love it. But one part of that could also be a result from the fact that I lived the previous situation: "here is the link to the installer, this is provided only once so make sure not to lose the installer itself; it won't be provided again". And you think you have it bad when N.A. has a bad download session?

But bottom line: it installs N.I. software. Except when it doesn't and there's an issue. One of those can be easily experienced: "Cannot mount image". I experienced this 1st Christmas day on my laptop myself.. so, now what?

The theory behind the problem

Native Access is build upon an operating system. Meaning that it uses all the features provided by the OS it's running on, and on Windows 10 this means the ability to access so called ISO images.

What's an ISO image?

Easily put: An ISO image is a copy of a data CD. A CD is literally burned upon creation: a laser (or a mold) creates a specific pattern in the material which is then used to store whatever data you want to put on it. At the time of burning there isn't any way to determine the position of the laser within the CD area, therefor the process cannot be paused. Which implies that the whole thing needs to be done in one go. As a result of that the ISO image was build: an exact replica of a CD which exists as a regular file, ready to be read and burned.

Soon enough software got provided which allowed us to access such ISO images as if it was a regular archive (think about software such as WinRAR) or a virtual disk. The latter even became part of the operating system itself (now addressing operating systems such as Windows 10 & Unix(-like) environments).

The cause

So the problem is kind of simple... Windows 10 can mount ISO images, but it requires a specific program to do so; namely Explorer (which is the default file explorer). And here's the catch: Windows itself also relies on so called file associations. Meaning: Windows keeps track of your preferences when it comes to opening files. If you open an image file you (probably) want to start an image viewer (my personal favorite is IrfanView), if you open an .ens file you probably want to start Reaktor, so what if you try to open an ISO file?

Following my example of WinRAR: the program allows you to associate itself with ISO files, meaning that if you double click on one then WinRAR gets opened automatically and displays the contents of the ISO image.

So far, so good... but this also affects Native Access which will no longer be able to rely on Windows' default actions of providing access to such an image file. Now what?

The solution

So just to be clear: if Native Access cannot install software due to "error mounting image" errors then the problem is most likely caused by Windows (10) not being able to automatically recognize these file types anymore, and the most obvious cause for this is another program which associated itself with the ISO files.

There are 2 ways to resolve this.

Temporary



Here I'm trying to access an ISO image and as you can see in the screenshot WinRAR is also associated with the ISO extension; had I clicked 'opened' it would have started WinRAR.

So the key to this problem is knowing that "Windows Explorer" (aka "Windows Verkenner" in Dutch) is the key to allowing Windows 10 to access ISO images. Once I click on 'Verkenner' in the screenshot above Windows 10 will automatically assign a drive letter to the image and mount it (= making sure that we can actually access the image file).

After you've done this Windows will once again know how to access such files. So try to use Native Access again, even if the image is still mounted and even if the so called association never got reset. Chances are high that you'll be able to install the rest of your N.I. products with ease.

Permanent



Following up on my previous example: instead of choosing "Windows Explorer" right away pick the last option in the context menu: "Chose another app", this will show you the dialog I shared above. From here it's easy: be sure to check the box below which will permanently associate the .iso extension with whatever program you will now select. Then, obviously, select 'Windows Explorer' (as shown above) and click 'OK'.

From here on Windows will be able to access ISO images on its own, and as a result of that Native Access will be able to rely on this feature once more. Ergo: no more installation issues!

And there you have it....

I hope this could be useful for some of you!

 

Wow woow hahaha✨ if that is a solution that's great,super fantastic and I will try today, Thank you and...I will update my results, I just get back from work and going to take some sleep and already ajjusting alarm so I can do that soon as possible