Solved DVD drive appears in laptop that has no CD/DVD drive?

This is weird.
Windows 11 pro in a laptop with no physical CD/DVD drive.
Version 24H2

Today, Opening "This PC" suddenly shows a non existent DVD drive E: !


Furthermore the non existent drive has content:


This non existent drive is listed as a UDP . Seems to contain files to instal Word.

I know I can try to eject or even delete this drive but I want to know how it got there. This is not a new Laptop.

Can someone explain?
Thank you.

that looks like a microsoft office iso that is mounted. just right click it and "eject" it to unmount the iso

W10/11 will allow an .ISO file that's been downloaded or copied, to be mounted as a drive from File Explorer. While the file is mounted, it's viewed as a virtual DVD drive.

This is done to help auto-install a program. The ISO has an autorun.inf, which will launch Setup.exe to install Office. This is an offline install method, as opposed to running Office web setup which will download all required files from the Internet as needed.

If you have multiple ISO files, each of them can be mounted as the next drive letter. When you unmount the ISO, or restart Windows, the "drive" will disappear.

Thank you.
I installed Office on this laptop but that was months ago. I opened "this pc" many times in the past and it never showed this mounted drive. That is what surprised me: that it should abbruptly appear now.

is the .iso file still on your pc? it may have accidentally been selected (pressed enter when highlighted or double clicked).

dacrone said:

is the .iso file still on your pc? it may have accidentally been selected (pressed enter when highlighted or double clicked).

Click to expand...

Possibly.
I ejected it for now.

And do note that a Mounted .iso or .img file will take the first available drive letter. Look in Disk Management. Also, some third-party programs for managing .iso files will prevent Mount from showing in File Explorer's right-click menu..