The International Organization for Standardization is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and works in 164 countries.
Many CD images end in the file extension “ISO” to signify that they are using the ISO 9660 standard file system as opposed to another file system—hence CD images are commonly referred to as “ISOs”. Virtually all computers with CD-ROM drives that can read CDs use this standard. Some DVD-ROMs also use ISO 9660 file systems.