Windows users have lots of alternatives at hand, to name a few: Tiny Burner, ISO CD Burner or Ashampoo Burning Studio Free.

Hamster Free Burning Studio falls right in line with those programs. The program, which is currently available as a beta version at the developer site, supports CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. The main menu lists the available options. Here it is possible to create a data CD or DVD, or Copy a CD or DVD. Options are provided to switch to a minimal mode or full mode, the latter is suggested as it resembles the interface that most burning programs share.

The limitations to only copy or create CDs or DVDs will likely be lifted once the program leaves beta. For now, it is only possible to run those tasks. This limits the functionality, as it is not possible to use the program to burn a music CD or video DVD at this point in time. The disabled Media Studio button will likely add that functionality to the burning software. Another functionality that is not included yet is the option to backup data, which will also be added in a later version. The final release has the following capabilities:

Hamster Free Burning Studio performs the most popular operations with laser disks: data burning, backup copying, creating music disks, cloning DVDs, CDs or BluRay.

Free Burning Studio can read ISO images and burn those to disc. It can furthermore erase re-writable discs.

The program itself is promising, the lack of features however limits its use right now to copying and burning data discs. Windows users who would like to try Free Burning Studio can download the current program version from the developer website. The software is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

When you start Tiny Burner for the first time you notice that it launches both the main media burning interface plus a small always on top area that can acts as a drag and drop pod for files and folders. These are then automatically added to the active project.

The small drop area displays the total number of files and the total file size which can be handy to avoid adding more data than what can be burned on the inserted blank disc.

Tiny Burner is largely a file writer, support for different image formats is nearly non-existent. Only iso images are supported which is a severe limitation. Even audio CDs and DVDs do not seem to be supported by the program.

You can create and burn iso images from the Tools menu. Everything else is handled from the main program interface. Files and folders can be added with a right-click and the selection of the appropriate action from the context menu, via the File menu or one of the buttons of the main toolbar.

The total size of the current compilation, the available space on disc and the total disc space are displayed conveniently on the program’s status bar.

Controls are available to switch writers and to change the speed of the writing process. Compilations can be saved as projects which is handy if you want to burn the files again in the future, or need to add additional data to the compilation.

The core benefits of Tiny Burner are the minimalistic, easy to use interface and overall burning process, that it can be used commercially and that it supports all common CD, DVD. HD-DVD and Blu-Ray writers.

Some users will find the lack of supported image formats appalling, which is by far the biggest point of criticism.

The free burning software Tiny Burner supports 32-bit and 64-bit of the Windows operating system. Downloads and additional information are provided at the developer website.

Things have changed slightly with the release of Windows 7, which added capabilities to burn ISO images out of the box. Windows 7 users who encounter an ISO can simply right-click it to burn it on (an hopefully) connected DVD burner.

But what about users who are not running Windows 7? Sure, you could suggest a full fledged burning suite like Nero or a program like ImgBurn. Those are great programs, but they tend to be complicated in use. At least in comparison to ISO CD Burner, which is probably the most lightweight ISO burning software of them all.

To use ISO CD Burner it needs to be placed in the same directory as the ISO image. That should not be to much of a problem. Simply start the program afterwards. It will automatically scan the directory for ISO images and display those that are found in a pulldown menu at the top. If there is only one it is preselected automatically.

All that is left is to select the DVD burner from the list, if there is more than one. This is usually not the case either. In best case, users move the burning software to the directory of the ISO file, start it and press Burn It after start to burn the ISO to disk.

ISO CD Burner is available for download at the developer website. The tool is fully portable and should be compatible with most Windows operating systems.

I recently helped a friend of mine find a new laptop, as his old one was simply not cutting it anymore. I offered to configure the laptop, and one of the few requirements was the installation of a CD and DVD burning software.

My friend was used to heavyweight programs like Nero Burning Rom or Roxio Creator, and I decided to find a similar free burning app for Windows.

True Burner was mentioned recently by several tech blogs that I read in my RSS news reader, and I decided to give it a try to see if it was a suitable candidate.

When I saw the interface of the CD and DVD burning software I knew it was the right program. The interface displays the three supported disc types CD, DVD and Blu-Ray in the left sidebar, and the available burning options in the larger main area of the program window.

The program supports the following operations:

• CD: Create data CD, Create boot CD, Create Mp3 CD, Create audio CD, Burn ISO image, Make CD image, Make boot CD image, Erase CD-RW, Copy CD
• DVD: Create data DVD, Create boot DVD, Create MP3 DVD, Create DVD-Video, Burn ISO image, Make DVD image, Make boot DVD image, Erase DVD-RW, Erase DVD+RW, Copy DVD
• Blu-Ray Disc: Create data BD, Create MP3 BD, Burn ISO image, Make BD Image, Erase BD-RE

Each available entry is linked from the main interface, leaving no room for confusion.

The program switches to a similar user friendly interface once a selection has been made by the user. It avoids to confuse the user with advanced settings and parameters, and concentrates on the information that are required to burn the data to disc.

If you take a look at the data DVD screenshot below you see that it displays only a few controls in the window. It is possible to add files, folders, name the disc, select the disc size in the lower right corner and select a DVD burner if more than one are installed on the system.

A click on Burn burns the compilation to disk. The program leaves virtually no margin for error, as it limits the choices of the user to a minimum. Advanced users may find this irritating at times, but for the average user it is perfect.

True Burner features at a glance:

• Free for personal and commercial use
• Create data, bootable and multisession CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
• Create Audio CDs and MP3 CD/DVD/Blu-ray Discs
• Create DVD-Video
• Create and burn boot images
• Copy CDs and DVDs
• Based on award-winning burning software BurnAware 2 SDK
• Supports all current hardware interfaces (IDE/SCSI/USB/1394/SATA)
• Supports UDF/ISO9660/Joliet Bridged file systems (any combination)
• On-the-fly writing for all image types (no staging to hard drive first)
• Auto-verification of written files
• Supports CD-Text and unicode characters
• Supports Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 (32 and 64 Bit), no drivers required

True Burner is the ideal CD and DVD burning software for users who do not want to mess around with advanced configuration options. It is a dead simple click and go burning software that offers a comprehensive feature set.

True Burner is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows, and available for download at the developer website.

Update: True Burner is no longer available. Check out ImgBurn for an excellent alternative.

UsefulUtils Discs Studio is another lightweight disc burning software. The 500-something Kilobyte download will install a utility that can perform most disc burning operations on the computer system. It can burn data, audio and video disc and supports the most popular disc image formats as well including iso, img, bin, mdf and nrg.

The process is a little bit easier than in our favorite burning software ImgBurn. The explorer-like interface can be used to select files and add them to the queue. It is possible to burn the disc right away or configure some of the parameters before doing so.

Here is a list of supported features:

• SCSI, ATAPI, Parallel port, USB (1.1 and 2.0) and FireWire (IEEE 1394) devices support
• OverBurning (in UUDS – HyperBurning) support
• Supported BUP (Buffer Underrun Protection)
• Bootable discs burning
• Multisessional discs burning
• Support of MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, FLAC (if codecs are installed), WAV formats
• Support of ISO, UDF, IMG, BIN, MDF, XMF, NRG, BWI, B5I, CDI, PDI formats
• Audiotracks ripping with converting to: WMA, MP3, OGG, FLAC. FreeDB support

UsefulUtils Discs Studio is a free and lightweight disc burning software program for most Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The website is showing up in Russian by default. A click on the British flag will change the language to English.

To burn a disk image a software is needed that is capable of doing so. One of the best free disk burning applications is ImgBurn. ImgBurn is fast, lightweight and supports many of the more popular disk image formats including ISO, BIN and IMG among others. It is also compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of all Windows operating systems since the release of (and including) Windows 95.

It furthermore is capable of burning disk images to CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD DVD. In other words: ImgBurn should cover the needs of 99.9% of all users.

One of the useful features of ImgBurn is its context menu integration. A option to burn the disk image will automatically appear if a user right-clicks a supported disk image file.

The selected disk image will be loaded directly into the disk burning software program with the option to burn it immediately if a blank disk has been inserted into the disk writing drive.

All that is left to do is to click on the icon in the lower left of the window that is opening automatically. This will start the disk burning process. Users can optionally change the write speed settings and amount of copies in the left side or activate test mode or verification. That’s all there is to it to burn a disk image.

We had an ask the readers article just a short while ago about the best free burning software that might be of interest as well.

Converting the formats into a supported format is probably the best solution if you encounter an unsupported disk image format. Any To ISO Converter can turn all of the disk formats mentioned in the first paragraph into the ISO format which is supported by most burning software programs.

The ISO converter has been designed with simplicity in mind. You only need to browse for and add one of the supported disk formats which you want to turn into ISO format. A click on the Convert button will start the conversion which does not take longer than a few minutes the most depending on the size of the disk image.

Any To ISO Converter has a download size of only 157 Kilobytes which is also the size on the computer’s hard drive. The application is completely portable and especially useful for computer users who have to deal with several image formats from time to time which are not always supported by the burning software.

Ashampoo Burning Studio Free is an old version of the burning software of Ashampoo which has been released to the public. Everyone can download and use it without having to register or pay money for it. It starts up reasonably fast without splash screens and long loading times. All operations are selectable from the main menu. Some operations are further divided, the Burn Files and Folders category contains options to burn a new disk or update an existing one.

Burning Studio Free supports CD, DVD and Blu-Ray disks. Here is what you can do with the burning software:

• Burn files to disk
• Burn or rip music.
• Burn movies
• Copy a disk
• Create or burn disk images
• Erase rewritable disks
• Backup or restore files

The list is pretty comprehensive. The most popular image formats (img, iso, cue/bin) are supported by Burning Studio Free which should be sufficient for most users.

Most impressive is the responsive interface which is much faster than that of Nero and similar applications.

If you are looking for a fast, responsive and high-quality burning software that does not cost a dime you should take a closer look at Ashampoo Burning Software Free. It might exactly be what you are looking for.

I switched immediately from IMGBurn to it. IMGBurn was unfortunately rather complex to use. One example. To burn mp3 to disk one had to create a cue file before that was possible. Ashampoo simply takes the mp3 and burns them right away.

The disc burning software can burn audio and data CDs and DVDs. The disc burning software is compatible to all 32-bit editions of Windows and can either be installed or run as a portable application. The major selling point of cdrtfe is the clean interface that provides all disc burning options in tabs in the main window.

Not all tabs are equally important. The four most important ones are Data CD, Audio CD, CD Image and Video DVD. Files can be added easily using the Windows file browser. One important tip is that the size bar at the bottom does not change automatically depending on the files that are added to the disc burning software. A right-click makes it possible to change the size from 650 Megabytes to dual-layer DVDs with 7.96 Gigabytes.

There are unfortunately a few disadvantages that might not play a role for most users but surely will disappoint a few. The only supported image format is ISO which means that other image formats like img are not supported by ctrtfe. Users who will only burn data and audio CDs and DVDs but no images will be perfectly happy with the disc burning software while those that work with multiple image formats will have to find another tool or a possibility to convert image formats into ISO.

Still; cdrtfe is a feature rich portable Open Source disc burning software. Everyone else should take a look at the free burning software recommendations to find a suitable CD and DVD burning software.