Burn ISO Image File to CD with Free Software

Oscar Sodani is a founder of Help2Go and owner of Help2Go Networks, an IT consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area. Oscar holds the CISSP certification as well as industry certifications from Microsoft, Cisco and Novell.

Step 1: Download and Install CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a completely free software package. The first step is to download the latest version from the CDBurnerXP web site. As of this writing, the installer comes in a ZIP file, so you'll want to extract the contents first. (Click here if you don't know how to extract a ZIP file)

Inside the ZIP file, you'll find a setup.exe installer. Double-click it to install CDBurnerXP onto your system. Accept all the default options.

Step 2: Run CDBurnerXP

Start the CDBurnerXP program. You should see a screen like this:

Choose the first option, which will allow you to burn an ISO. The main CDBurnerXP interface will appear.

Click on the File menu and choose Write Disc from ISO File...

At the top, where it says Select an ISO image to write, click the ... button. Find the ISO file you would like to burn to CD.

Now place an empty CD-R into your CD drive. Choose the speed at which you want to write the image to CD - it's a good idea to choose a speed less than the maximum speed your drive can write at. Most CD-R discs are rated for a particular speed, i.e. 16x. I usually choose the speed slightly slower than what the disc is rated at, i.e. 12x for a disc rated at 16x.

Next, click the Write Disc button. 

That's all there is to it! We'll have more CDBurnerXP tutorials in the future, but I'm sure you'll find that it is a pretty good CD burning utility for the money (after all, it's free!)

Have a question? Need help? Get free, friendly person-to-person help with your computer questions or spyware questions in our help forums!