Writing Files to a CD in Windows XP
Joe M posted in Howto on March 15th, 2008
I got a call from a good friend of mine the other evening.
She was trying to write files to a CD. I did not have a Windows XP box in front of me, and we struggled through it.
It is possible to write files and audio to a CD in Windows XP, without any additional software. Microsoft provided a built-in package with XP written by Roxio.
After I hung up the phone, I sat down to figure it out.
I walked myself through it, and I am sharing it here.
First I usually open two windows; one with the files I want to burn, and the other with a disc in the CD-R / CD-RW drive (usually D: or E:).
I put them side by side, for easy drag and drop operation.
I select the files I want in the left window, then drag and drop them in the right pane.
Once I have the files I want listed in the window to the right, I click on Write these files to disk.
At this point, I have my choice of a data CD or an audio CD.
I choose data, and click Next.
It shows me the progress in writing the CD. It will take a few minutes, depending on the size and amount of data I am writing to the CD.
When it finishes, I have an option to write another CD with the same files or I can close the dialog with Finish.
It’s not real hard to do, but it’s not exactly intuitive. I can usually walk people through howto’s like this over the phone without a Windows screen in front of me. No matter how much I concentrated, I could not remember my way through this one.
There are also other packages both commercial and free that will do the same things.
This is useful to know, in case you ever need it.