windows 7 - How to mount a folder as a virtual CD or DVD drive?

I want to mount a local folder as a virtual CD/DVD drive to allow me to run a program without having the CD mounted physically.

I know I could burn it to an ISO file and mount that as a virtual CD/DVD drive using Daemon Tools or similar programs, however I would prefer if I could mount it directly from a folder.

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I have looked at this question, however there was no useful answers as the asker wanted to boot from the folder, which is not possible:

How to mount a folder as a virtual CD/DVD drive?