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Microsoft deliberately blocking disc burning software in Vista, claims Alcohol

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Tim Gaden14 September 2006, 12:52 PM

It's no coincidence that none of the major DVD burning apps work properly in Vista yet: Microsoft is blocking the drivers needed for them to work, according to Alcohol Soft, the company behind the popular Alcohol 120%.

To their own frustration and to the frustration of their users, big CD/DVD burning companies Roxio, Alcohol and Ahead Software (makers of Nero) are facing a huge problem in getting their software packages to work with Vista.

According to Alcohol Soft, the maker of Alcohol 52% and 120%, Microsoft is blocking its ability to ensure compatibility:

They have actually placed a hard block on the device drivers for the time being, to stop the virtual drives from loading. It is more than likely in place to help them beta test Vista without having reports from beta users regarding virtual drives, which might complicate things. We are working with them at the moment to ensure there are no incompatibility problems in the future.

As a result, "As of this time Alcohol 120% will not work in Windows Vista Beta, although we do hope to support it once we get past the RC1 release and further," Alcohol Soft says.

Roxio and Nero cannot be definite about the compatibility of their product either. Roxio says that

EMC Version 9 is Vista compatible, but Vista is a moving target, so we can't assure 100% compatibility until after Vista is final and released. We may have to release an update at that time, but we are committed to doing so if necessary.

Nero is "currently working on" reliable compatibility but could not commit to anything more definite "at this stage".

However, Vista RC1 users report that Deep Burner (shareware) and ImgBurn (donation-ware) are working.

APC gave Microsoft ten days to provide a response to Alcohol Soft's claim, but at the time of publication, it still hadn't responded since its initial acknowledgement of the enquiry.

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Evan:

It is BETA Windows and it has no obligations to ensure that select programs are able to work on it. These companies should get over themselves they dont own Windows.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

hapbt:

The fact that Deep Burner and ImgBurn work fine, without modification, makes you wonder where the problem really lies. Alcohol soft might have some issues because of their use of often insane and bizarre copy-protection (which is ironic, since their product exists to bypass copy protection), and Roxio's issues may stem from not having updated their burning engine since Adaptec owned it many years ago (do they have programmers at Roxio???)

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tyler Durden:

This is only the beginning; you'll be able to fill a hard drive with the number of programs and content that the TCPA/DRM scheme in Vista is going to block.

Screw Vista.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

cyber_rigger:

Don't use Vista.

Linux disk burning software works fine.

To burn an ISO
just right click and pick write to disk.

http://tinyurl.com/o8apw

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Mr. Poster aka Eric:

Simple do not up grade, get over it.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

kingsmeadow:

Contrary to what you read imgburn and deepburn DO NOT install on Vista64

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Jonathon:

Windows Vista has been a big disappointment in my opinion.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Renegade:

Jonathon, most people would agree with you. But lets just wait for the final thing to be released before we make harsh judgement.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tony Brown:

Mmmmmmmmm Have just bought XPHome about a year ago :)Seems to be working well enough now (after 4 reloads and 5 formats) that I think I'll keep it for awhile. I might just let the roaring lion of Vista sleep till they get it right. Then again I may move over to Linux. But I still miss Win98Se which was a real clunker but I had no problems with !!!! Funny that what :)
Cya down the pub sometimes :):)

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

james:

Why is everybody putting windows vista down. i have been using windows vista for a while and think it is the best version of windows that microsoft has made. driver and program incompatibility is normal, it's a beta ofc there are going to be some incompatibilities, this was the case with XP too.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

joe:

hi,as somebody said earlier-screw vista,i am already halfway over to linux and if microsoft makes it harder and harder for me,then i will move completly to linux.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

morri uk:

Just tried to install deepburner pro and free ,both crashed ,on run install,unable to get a proper burner to back up installed programs on rc1,its own seems virtually useless,but the rest off rc1 great any help out there,bye mo

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Jean-Luc:

Yah but, as James said they are beta versions. RC1 has some incapability, and the RTM version will have some too.

But there still beta just be patient and wait for the full release of Windows Vista.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

arteris:

Ironically, in Beta 2 my copy of Nero Express OEM ran fine and let me burn the ISO image for RC1. When I installed RC1 and tried to use Nero Express OEM to burn an ISO of the 32-bit version for a friend, Nero can't access the drive to burn the image.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

fred bloggs:

i got a few dvds backed up usin windows vista and its built in progs
i had to install ultraiso and bust open the .iso files and burned the audio_ts andvideo_ts files as data

worked fine

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

cobblers:

well, imgburn works very well on 5728.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Allan:

guys, remember that RC1 is the time in which developers have the opportunity to tune up their software for compatibility, it is just a matter of time before they can get everything to work, so far i have been using Windows Media Player to burn music, and the default Vista Burning software to burn Data, I used ImgBurn to burn the ISO for Build 5728, overall performance and stability on Vista is incredible, so far i'm very happy with it :)

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Michael:

Just to let you know, Ive been running vista for a while since way before b2, and so far I can comfortably tell you Discjuggler works beautifully, and so does CDR-WIN 6.1 and AVI2DVD Burner, with these programs you can pretty much do everything that nero, and alcohol do and more. Anything using virtual drive software will crash, but since these programs dont, there is no compatibility or crashing issues, I find CDR-WIN 6.1 uses very little CPU in vista and burns perfectly.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Michael:

Im running RC1 Build 5728.

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Peter Birkle:

I have tried using AVI2DVD ver 0.4.4 and and try to encode an avi to DVD and the first bit seems to work the audio encoding but then I get a File Access error and I have given full permisions to the directory where the AVI file is located and there the temp directory is where the eveual ISo file will be but still get file file access denied. In the log is says starts mp3 Ac3 conversion.

I don't get the DOS screen windows that comes up like on my slower XP machine

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Peruzulu:

I am using RC1(5600) and DeepBurner free edition has installed without problem and worked flawlessly.
Now that I think about my burning habits, I have no need for Nero with all of its built in crap that I never use. Go and look for alternative programs to those you use simply "because you do". There are many to choose from, and some are even free.
So far for me, Vista has been trouble free. Creative on the other hand, they suck big time, but that is another story.
P

29 February 2008, 8:29 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous:

Yeah. I'm late getting to this article.

I was having some trouble getting Nero installed on Vista so I was trolling around the net when I found this.

I tried to install DeepBurner and it gave me an error, at which point a windows box appeared saying it may need admin rights.

I allowed it and it ran again, flawlessly. I'm now burning a DvD while responding. Seems to me Nero and Alch 120% (Alch is also working on my system currently) were just having issues dealing with more of a user based enviroment then Microsoft has released before.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

trial and error:

i wish i read this first vista reset about 4 time before i realised i would have to system restore i was going to disable it to. Alcohol 120% caused it so here a warning dont install it in vista and if u do put the vista disk in a system restore and it should be fine i learnt my lesson nevr trust a vista good looks can be evil things can be evil haha

29 February 2008, 8:30 PM (2 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend