Put in a fresh CD if you have no special software installed and Windows presents two options: 1) Burn Files to Disc using Windows Explorer > Like a USB flash drive formats disk to use as file storage... notes: formatting uses approx 5.6 MB of total 702 MB space unlike a USB drive, when you copy files to disk and delete them, this space is no longer available... only the previously unused space will be available for new files. In the future when you insert this CD, Windows will only prompt to "open folder to view files" - these files can be read by another Windows computer, no "finalizing is necessary > With a CD player This option burns files to the CD and finalizes it so files can no longer be deleted or edited * For more information click the link at the bottom "Which CD or DVD format should I use?" 2) Burn an Audio CD using Windows Media Player >This opens Windows Media Player and you can drag audio files images and other onto the CD and burn them to CD. Drag them into the right column and when finished click ] "Start Burn" at the top of the right column ----------------------- Put in a fresh DVD and you get two options: 1) Burn Files to Disc using Windows Explorer > Like a USB flash drive formats disk to use as file storage... notes: formatting uses approx 5.6 MB of total 4.4 GB of space and unlike a USB drive, when you copy files to disk and delete them, this space is no longer available... only the previously unused space will be available for new files. In the future when you insert this DVD, Windows will only prompt to "open folder to view files" - these files can be read by another Windows computer, no "finalizing is necessary > With a DVD player This option burns files to the DVD and finalizes it so files can no longer be deleted or edited * For more information click the link at the bottom "Which CD or DVD format should I use?" 2) Burn a DVD video Disk using Windows DVD Maker) >This opens Windows DVD Maker and you follow the wizard and "Add Items" to the burn list and then burn them to DVD.