Quick Data Burn to Disk in Vista

Last night I had been spending a lot of time on our Vista laptop.

That usually means I want to fiddle with settings, ensure I am running the system optimally, etc.

I had ran a defrag session using Auslogics, but was surprised to find I had less free-space than I had expected....especially since we really haven't been loading many applications at all on this system.

We use it mostly as a web-surfing, blogging and occasional Office document creation platform.

Anyway, turns out I had forgotten to remove the GB's of  recovered files/folders I had saved when our desktop system's drive had failed.

Time to off-load to disk.

I pulled out one of my dual-layer DVD's but then I was faced with making a decision as to how to get the data onto the disk.  I have lots of disk-media tools and utilities, but never got around to finding and installing a "package" solution (Nero) on this system.

What to do?  Surely Vista comes with some kind of basic solution, right?

Right!

I found this fantastic post that showed me exactly what to do:

Kellogg Information Systems How to Docs: DVD Data Backup in Windows Vista

Summary:

1. Insert blank DVD disk into the drive (yes, apparently dual layer DVD's are supported).
2. When the AutoPlay wizard appears, select "Burn files to disk...using Windows"
3. Add a title (defaults to today's date).
4. Select the "Show formatting" drop arrow underneath.
5. Select the "Mastered" option if you are making an "archival burn" like I was.
6. Now select "Next"
7. A Windows Explorer window appears.  Browse, drag and drop the files and/or folders you wish to burn to the disk over to the right-hand pane.
8. When you are done, select the "Burn to disk" button on the toolbar.
9. Review the summary and click "Next" to begin the burning process.

Burn times will be dependent on speed of drive, speed of recording media, size of data, and system hardware.

Sure, there are a number of fuller-featured disk-media burning applications, but when you are in a hurry and need something easy right at hand, this isn't a bad solution.

Not too bad at all.

--Claus