CD Burning on Windows XP

Just upgraded our home computer system to XP for the demands of my wife's home office, and i can truthfully say that it sucks, at least for burning cds.

Sckott, I read your other posts on this subject, specifically about installing the the ASPI retrofit, but it didn't work. Actually, the ASPI-check program found the ASPI layer already installed, but it didn't help with Easy CD Creator 4. "They" want me to upgrade to version 5, but i really don't wanna give 'em any more of my money. Tried EAC as well, but wouldn't you know it - it seems to not be compatible with my specific burner. I'll swap it out this weekend and try again.

As for the Windows Media Player that supposedly burns music discs....

Unless I'm doing something wrong, WMP won't rip or copy .wav files. What it does is rip the tracks as .wma and then convert them back onto the cdr. It also - at least as far as i can tell - won't do any direct digital-to-digital copying. And the program interface is virtually useless! Just how good or bad are .wma files anyway?

Oh well, any tips that anyone can impart will be much appreciated.

Ray

 

I feel your pain. I upgraded from win98 to xp a few months ago (I hated winME) cause I kinda/sorta have a job in the IT industry and felt I was slipping behind. I struggled with it and the only new functionality I could find within it of virtue was the HDCD decoding in the new WMP (assuming you have 20 bit DAC's in your soundcard).

I took it off and went back to win98 so I could use EZCD and other things that Microsoft keeps integrating into the OS.

My brother plans on buying a new PC at Best Buy or one of the other major chains and lives too far away for me to put anything together for him. I'm sure it will come thru with XP installed. I'm probably going to have to reinstall XP so I can answer his neophyte questions. I'm not looking forward to it.

Sorry I couldn't help... I just needed someone to open up too.

 

Drew, I've been reading up on this all day on the net and think I've found a solution where i can run both XP and Win 98, using both NTFS and Fat32 file systems (further complicating the problem!). So we'll see how it goes this weekend...

Ray

 

Well there are a lot of burning programs out there.
And most of them have trial versions. You can download Nero at www.nero.com or CDRwin at www.goldenhawk.com.
And even though it's illegal you can find key engines for both these programs all over the internet.

 

Sorry to hear, Ray. Take a look at http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net for a good ripper, or if you can find the paid version of Audiocatalyst (same idea) now bought from RealMedia. Both are strong rippers with enough control and compatability.

The Retro-Fit for XP is vital. No, of course you can't use EZCD 4.0. the shell in XP is written to prevent certain programs from ever running-period. EZCD isn't the only one. I don't recommnend you using EZCD 5.x either.

Keep looking every month to the EAC website, as the author is well behind a burner-definition upgrade to his code source. Then, you'll find your burner WILL work with EAC.... but for now, like another one said, CDRWin works great as a burning program, and so does Fireburner - more units are compatable with those programs. Rip with Audiograbber, load tracks into CDRwin, and love life.

But EAC, I've been very lucky and happy to experience the fact that I have no CD burner that won't work on it.....yet.

Have fun!!