I recently downloaded software in an .iso
format.
Do I need to download any special software to run this file?
Short Answer: Yes.
Long Answer: An ISO is an optical media (CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, etc.) image. Normally you would use some sort of burning software (ImgBurn, CDBurnerXP, Nero, Roxio, etc.) to burn this ISO to a disc, then use the disc to install from.
Alternatively, there is software available like Virtual Clone Drive, DVDFab Virtual Drive, or Daemon Tools (among others) that will let you create a virtual CD/DVD drive and mount the ISO to a drive letter.
Most decompression programs can also simply extract an ISO file to a folder. You can then run the setup executable directly from the extracted files.
An iso (short for ISO 9660) is a CD image. On most desktop operating systems other than Windows, you can access its contents by mounting it through FuseISO (e.g. Ubuntu: fuseiso ).