I recently reformatted my machine, and when I tried installing my copy of Nero 5, it asked me for a registration key which I guess is long gone now (I have no idea where I would have put it). That's when I made the mistake of starting to install "Nero 7 Essentials." What the hell did they do?? When did Nero turn into Norton and McAfee? It must have asked to install 8 different programs, and it wasn't clear which one was even the actual burning application (they all sounded like wizards). This is very disappointing. Nero was the best for a long while.

So is there a CD burning program out there now that is free and of decent quality? I have to imagine that someone has made one...

ps-the built-in Windows burning tool is useless. this is the second computer I've tried it on where the application simply refuses to accept files I tell it to burn, and doesn't give any reason why it does.

CDBurnerXP Pro is freeware and actually works. I still prefer Nero even though it has become incredibly bloated.

Oh yeah, you said you downloaded Nero Essentials. I think that may be a wizard-only edition. If you want Nero Burning Rom (the old app), you may need to get a different (more bloated) edition.

PS- ImgBurn is also freeware, but only burns images. It does a very good/quick job of it and I often use it instead of Nero.

Burnatonce, free and opensource. Very simple, but burns everything i want to:

http://www.burnatonce.com/

Thanks, everyone. It appears that Rob was correct in that the "Essentials" package does not contain the Nero Burning ROM application. I find this almost humorous, as that is the only program of theirs that I would call essential, and the rest of it is just bloatware.

But someone else was very kind in PMing me a Nero 5 code. Hopefully it'll work.