While it is possible to use external CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drives for that, or use USB drives as an alternative in most cases, it sometimes may be faster and cost-effective to use an existing device on another computer in the network. In my case, this would be my desktop PC running Windows 7.

Paragon Software has just released version 2.0 of their free Net Burner application. As the name implies, it offers the capabilities needed to share optical drives over a computer network. Sharing in this regard means mounting a CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drive on another computer in the same network.

Registration as always is kind of a hassle. Users need to fill out a form on the official website before they receive the product’s download link via email. The email contains a serial and product key, which surprisingly cannot be entered into the program. There is simply no menu or form for that anywhere. The program itself does not appear to be restricted though.

Net Burner is a single setup file that can install the full program, a client or server. The main idea is to install the server on a system with optical drive, and the client on PCs without. The full installation is probably available for testing purposes and for less-tech savvy users to make sure they install the right components on their systems.

Once you have at least one client and server running, you can access the server’s optical drive on the client computer. The program lists all devices in a program listing. You can use the refresh button to refresh the device listing or enter a local IP and port manually.

Once you have selected a drive it will be mounted on the client PC. This may take a few seconds and may prompt a “new hardware” dialog. Once it has been mounted you can make use of it like any other drive on the computer. This includes using it to burn a CD, DVD or Blu-Ray disc or to install a program from a disc.

The network drive can be dismounted with a right-click on Net Burner’s system tray icon and the selection of Remove Optical Drive.

Especially the ability to install software that ships on disc on a system without CD, DVD or Blu-Ray drive is handy.

The Net Burner application is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. Windows users need to fill out a form to receive the program download link via email. (via)

While it is usually relatively easy to resolve uninstallation issues, for instance by using a third party software uninstaller like Revo Uninstaller, the same cannot be said for installation problems, especially if the programs do not throw error messages or hint at the problem during the installation attempt.

Microsoft has released one of their Fix-It tools to “diagnose and fix program installing and uninstalling problems automatically”. A Fix-It is a small portable program that Windows users can run to resolve and repair issues on their operating system semi-automatically.

The Microsoft Support page, which is also the page where the Fix-It can be downloaded, lists the following issues that are repaired by the application:

• Removes bad registry key on 64 bit operating systems.
  Windows registry keys that control the upgrade (patching) data that become corrupted.
• Resolves problems that prevent new programs from being installed.
• Resolves problems that prevent programs from being completely uninstalled and blocking new installations and updates.
• Use this troubleshooter for an uninstall only if the program fails to uninstall using the windows add/remove programs feature.

Windows users who run the program can select to let the program handle both the detection of problems and the fixes, or to let the user apply the fixes manually after issues have been identified.

The second option gives more control over the process and is usually the better choice.

The type of problem, installing or uninstalling related, needs to be selected in the second step. If uninstalling is selected, a list of all programs that are currently being detected as installed is displayed. There is also an option to select Not Listed if the program that is causing the uninstalling problems is not listed here.

If the program is not listed, users can still uninstall the application by entering the program’s product code represented as a string GUID.

Windows users who have problems installing or uninstalling software can download the Fix-It from the official Microsoft Support website.

SpyMe Tools is a software program that can monitor both file and registry changes caused by software installations. This is done by creating snapshots before and after the software installation. These snapshots are then compared to each other and the differences are shown to the user. The program does require some manual work before it can be used effectively. The first step is to create a snapshot of the Windows Registry before the software installation.

After that it is necessary to switch to file mode and select the hard drives that should be monitored for changes. This usually includes the partition with the Windows operating system and the partition that the software gets installed to. The program will create another snapshot of the hard drives which also has to be saved to the local hard drive.

After both snapshots have been created start the software installation normally. Once the software installation has been completed run a second scan of both the file system and Windows Registry. A click on the Compare button makes it then possible to compare both snapshots with each other to display the changes to both the file system and the Windows Registry that the installation has caused.

The software installation monitor will display the information in a tree like view in the left window of the software program. If you compare the file system it will list all folders that have been changed in the file system since the creation of the first and second snapshot. The right window will contain the actual file information including name, type and size.

SpyMe Tools are also providing access to a real time monitor that can either monitor the Windows Registry or the file system in specified locations. The real time mode is a bit harder to work with as all changes will be listed in one quickly growing table.