How to Copy Files to a CD or DVD in Windows 10
- Computers
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- How to Copy Files to a CD or DVD in Windows 10
By Andy Rathbone
When you create a CD or DVD, you must tell your PC running Windows 10 what youre copying and where you intend to play it: Music for a CD player? Photo slideshows for a TVs DVD player? Or files to store on your computer?
If you choose the wrong answer, your disc wont work, and youve created yet another coaster.
Here are the Disc Creation rules:
Music: To create a CD that plays music in your CD player or car stereo, you need to fire up the Windows Media Player program and burn an audio CD.
Photo slide shows: Windows doesnt include the Windows DVD Maker bundled with Windows Vista and Windows 7. To create photo slideshows, you need a third-party program.
If you just want to copy files to a CD or DVD, perhaps to save as a backup or to give to a friend, stick around.
Follow these steps to write files to a new blank CD or DVD. (If youre writing files to a CD or DVD that youve written to before, jump ahead to Step 4.)
Insert the blank disc into your disc burner and push in the tray. Then click or tap the Notification box that appears in the screens upper-right corner.
When the Notification box asks how youd like to proceed, click the boxs Burn Files to a Disc option.
Windows displays a Burn a Disc dialog box and asks you to create a title for the disc.
If the Notification box disappeared before you could click on it, eject your disc, push it back in, and have your hand ready on the mouse. (Alternatively, you can bring back the Notification box by right-clicking the disc drives icon in File Explorer and choosing the Open Autoplay option.)
Type a name for the disc, describe how you want to use the disc, and click Next.
Unfortunately, Windows limits your CD or DVDs title to 16 characters. Instead of typing Family Picnic atop Orizaba in , stick to the facts: Orizaba, . Or, just click Next to use the default name for the disc: the current date.
Windows can burn the files to the disc two different ways. To decide which method works best for you, it offers you two options:
Like a USB flash drive: This method lets you read and write files to the disc many times, a handy way to use discs as portable file carriers. Unfortunately, that method isnt compatible with some CD or DVD players connected to home stereos or TVs.
With a CD/DVD player: If you plan to play your disc on a fairly new home stereo disc player thats smart enough to read files stored in several different formats, select this method.
Armed with the discs name, Windows prepares the disc for incoming files.
Tell Windows which files to write to disc.
Now that your disc is ready to accept the files, tell Windows what information to send its way. You can do this in any of several ways:
Drag and drop your files and/or folders into the drives File Explorer window.
Right-click the item you want to copy, be it a single file, folder, or selected files and folders. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Send To and select your disc burner from the menu. (The pop-up menu lists the discs title you chose in Step 2.)
Drag and drop files and/or folders on top of the burners icon in File Explorer.
From your My Music, My Pictures, or My Documents folder, click the Share tab and then click Burn to Disc. This button copies all of that folders files (or just the files youve selected) to the disc as files.
Tell your current program to save the information to the disc rather than to your hard drive.
No matter which method you choose, Windows dutifully looks over the information and copies it to the disc you inserted in the first step. A progress window appears, showing the disc burners progress. When the progress window disappears, Windows has finished burning the disc.
Close your disc-burning session by ejecting the disc.
When youre through copying files to the disc, push your drives Eject button (or right-click the drives icon in File Explorer and choose Eject). Windows closes the session, adding a finishing touch to the disc that lets other PCs read it.
If you try to copy a large batch of files to a disc — more than will fit — Windows complains immediately. Copy fewer files at a time, perhaps spacing them out over two discs.
Most programs let you save files directly to disc. Choose Save from the File menu and select your CD burner. Put a disc (preferably one thats not already filled) into your disc drive to start the process.
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