Easily Burn Optical Discs With BurnAware Free Edition
Windows Vista and XP have built in disc burning functionality but they are lacking in features. Today we will take a look at BurnAware Free Edition which - as the name implies - is free and feature rich.
One thing to mention during installation is that the Ask Toolbar will be checked by default. If you don’t want another toolbar make sure and uncheck this.
The user interface of BurnAware is very clean and easy to navigate. Just click the type of media you would like to create on the left. Also worth pointing out is the ability to create ISO and DVD images, new in Windows 7 is a utility that will allow you to burn ISO images.
Burning a disc is very straight forward. Choose the type of disc to create from the menu above then add files.
One of the preferences I like is the ability to choose the write speed before burning. If burning an important data disc, quality movie, or DVD I prefer err on the side of a slower speed.
You can view the progress while burning the disc.
A successful burn of a CD as an example. We would have loved to try a Blu-ray but unfortunately no Blu-ray burner.
Conclusion
BurnAware is a very nice disc burning utility. It is extremely simple to install and use. One caveat is you will need to purchase a license for the Home version if you want to create bootable discs or images. The licensed version for $29.95 allows additional tools for copying DVD’s, games, and, other digital media. If you are looking for a free and easy to use disc burning application BurnAware Free is a great choice!
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CDBurnerXP is completely free, won't attempt to install crapware toolbars, and won't ask you to upgrade for a fee. It also runs smoothly on Vista.
IMO, all those features make it > BurnAware.
is this program burn DVD??
@brgulker
Freewares are bundled with toolbars becuase they will get some revenue of including these toolbars.
Another vote for CDBurnerXP. Fast, free, and does everything you'd want.
I too have to go with CDburnerXP
CDBurnerXP and BurnAware work well as free burners but I think BurnAware is a bit more "common consumer" friendly.
I used to prefer CDBurnerXP myself but BurnAware burns faster than CDBurnerXP for my Lite-On drive. Also, CDBurnerXP requires .Net to run so using BurnAware for a quick installation for burning discs is much more convenient.
I have used BurnAware in the past and tested it with many tasks in hopes of finding a free burning solution I could recommend…unfortunately BurnAware is not the one.
When it comes to Data Backup, BurnAware does the job pretty good but thats about where I stop liking it.
Audio CD burning is awful. All audio cds can hold up to about 80 min of music however BurnAware is only able to burn about 65 min because it adds at least a minute of useless silence to the end of every track burnt. Therefore making it unable to copy some audio cd's for backing up.
The ISO Burning is pretty decent but I had problems with this program when it came to writing ISOs…it often did the same thing it did with the audio by adding a lot of useless data making the ISO too large to then burn to a copy.
I would give it about a 6.7 / 10 because it does do the job it says it does but at times it doesn't do it well…it would have gotten a 7.5 had their support been worth a damn. I reported the problems that I just stated to them the moment I found them and that was about 3 or 4 months ago and they never responded.
- Alternative Options -
ImgBurn = ISO Burning and Writing
Ashampoo Burning Studio Free = Audio CDs and simple copies, quick and I haven't found any issues so far.
just a quick correction…I copy and pasted that from a comment I made on another blog about the same program but forgot to update the length of time they never responded…it is now 9 months…sad.
How do I know what I need to keep on my computer and what I can remove, trying to get back some memory.Have a lot of programs that I don't know if I need…
I use ImgBurn myself
This program ruined my disks!
I used this program for months and when I tried to use a disk after couple of months, about 10%-20% of them where ruined…
I have tried all freeware burning applications like CDBurnerXP, InfraRecorder, BurnAware, DeepBurn, Ashampoo Burning Studio Free Edition etc. IMHO the application which consistently burns error-free and reliable disks is ImgBurn. The new version released a few days ago makes the application even better. You can use it to create Data Disks, Bootable Disks, Backups, Disk Images etc. I use Windows Media Player 11 to burn my audio disks.