Linux Live CD's and install disks are transferred and downloaded as ISO image files. An ISO file is a file that contains the complete image of a disc, either a CD or a DVD. The CD burning program that you are using must recognize that newly downloaded file as an ISO file or you will be burning unbootable discs.

Burning an ISO file in Windows should be an easy and straightforward process, but I found out that it's not always the case, anymore. It used to be, that when you bought a new internal or external CD/DVD drive, a full version of a CD burning program came with it, along with other useful software. I recently bought an expensive Pioneer external CD/DVD ROM drive and it came with Nero 8 Essentials, which is not useful for burning ISO files or DVD files.

After years of using k3b, which comes free with the KDE desktop and is a fully functional burning program for Linux, dealing with trial or incomplete versions of Windows based CD burning programs was a new experience. I installed Windows on this brand new machine that I had just built, because none of the Linux distos that I had on hand, would work well with the new hardware. So, it was time to download some ISO files of Linux distros and try them out.

After doing a little bit of searching, I found a few ISO burning programs. These are very small programs, and best of all, free! Even if you have a fully functioning CD burning program, these little programs can come in handy to ensure that you're burning a bootable disk.

The one I used is called Active@ ISO Burner, which is free and simple to install. I downloaded the ISO-burner.exe file and ran it right on the desktop. It works perfectly in Windows XP for  burning ISO files to CD and DVD and will work with Windows Vista. I didn't even have to type in the path to the ISO file. Now, I am writing this article on that new computer with openSuSE 11.0. Here is the link: http://www.ntfs.com/iso-burning.htm.

Here are a couple more links to free ISO burning programs as well.

http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-burnwin.htm

http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm