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.

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.