I can confirm that if done properly, a disc image does work. Most importantly, no copy protection cracking is necessary.

Some copy protections don't like if the game was installed on a different physical/virtual drive than the one you have the play disc in. GTA Vice City was one notable one. I installed from the physical disc and tried playing from the image. Didn't work until I had installed from the image. I found those issues with Securom protected games. M2TW is Safe Disc 4.6 so none of that.