A
live CD,
live DVD, or
live disc is a complete
bootable computer installation including
operating system which runs in a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive; the CD itself is
read-only. It allows users to run an
operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without
secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing
data recovery. A live ISO is an
ISO image of a Live CD which can be used in virtual machine environments, mounted as if it were a CD/DVD and used as the virtual machine's boot CD. Live CDs, ISOs, and images usually include an operating system available without charge or restrictive license such as Linux, rather than a commercial one such as Microsoft Windows, for legal rather than technical reasons.