CD burning in OSX is PATHETIC

[Javintosh]

and yes, I mean for those to be all caps.

This is the one thing that bothers me the most about OSX (yes, I am using 10.2.1).

now don't go telling me to get Toast. I got Toast and I think it works great, but my mother in law, who spent what she considers a fortune on her computer. is not about to go out and spent $80 to get what should be absolutely minimal cd burning functionality.

I've tried a number of things, and for the life of me I cannot make a CD rom readable by my co worker's windows computers. Currently I am trying the following:
1. make MS DOS formatted blank image in disk copy
2. copy files from CD image to new image manually in finder
3. burn disk image to CD in the finder

I don't know if this will work or not. I don't have a windows machine to try this on.

I can tell you, that it took a couple of minutes to create the image, then it took 8 minutes to copy 60 MB of data into said image (much, much slower than copying to UNIX of MacOS images - I've tried them both) and I can finally start to burn the image (after getting a message about the image being in use because it is mounted).

of course, this does not work because I get a message stating that the data in the image will not mount properly when burned to a disc (the 100MB size I suspect, but in reality I do not know)

I should point out that I made the image from a device using disc copy. you'd think that making an image from a ISO9660 disk would result in an ISO9660 image. However, that would give waaaay too much credit to apple's sh!tty CD burning software. BTW, I tried "new Image from device" and "new image from colume of folder" - they both case out as MacOS Extended.

I don't know... maybe I've been hit by a massive case of targetted stupidity, but this in a constant embarassemt both at home (I sent disks to 31 parents from my wife's class only to find out about the MacOS X 10.2 problem with windows CDs. of course, I've had no luck using 10.2.1 either) and at work (two of my co-workers got iBooks only to find themselves completely unable to make windows CDs. also I've had to divert people away from lab macs when they are about to make CDs. I got Toast in my computer at work, but there are many other macs floating around that do not belong to me and do not have toast).

While I am ranting about CD burning I should also point out that burning in the finder is completely embarassing as well. I've had people ask me to burn some files to a CD (thankfully destined for another mac). I copy the files into the CD, the finder shows the progress bar as the data is optimized. at this point most people think the CD is done (hey they only have experience with windows, what do they know about macs!). It's hard to tell this people that the mac is better when I also have to tell them at this point that the CD burning it just starting.

it simply seems like you have to make too many copies of the data to burn a lousy CD in the finder.

in any case, in addition to ranting, I wanted a little help. Has anyone made a CD for a windows computer successfully? if so, how did you do it? if you tried, but were not successfull can you post your experiences.... they say that misery loves company, but psychological experiments have shown that misery loves *miserable* company (I knew that psyc degree would come in handy at some point)

thanks!

[Sogni]

Why not:
Create a new folder wherever you want using the finder,
Drag or copy all the stuff you want to burn to a CD into that folder,
Burn the contents of the folder onto a CD - be in that folder when you click Burn.
(View/Customize Toolbar and drag "Burn" (yellow hazard circle) to the toobar and click that when ready)

If something wants to take over when you insert the CD, go to System Preferences, under Hardware click CDs & DVDs, select Finder for when you insert a new CD.

You'll see the blank CD mount... which will be a quicker way if you have a 2nd CD Rom Drive, or all the files are already on your hard drive - just drag everything into the blank CD and eject it when you are done (it'll burn contents to CD before ejecting).

And my PCs (Win2K Pro and WinXP Pro) read the Mac-Burned CDs perfectly...

[Javintosh]

I just burned a CD using those instructions. I'll sent it on its way monday morning and see what happens (that's the first thing I tried waaay back then).

I should note, however, that most of my wife's parents are running Win98 and at work we are still using WinNT 4.0.

Has anyone had any luck getting MacOSX burned CDs to work with either of those Operating systems?

[plastic]

Worked OK on the Win 98 machine at the office. I have to share doc files with the admin lady in the office. She has not complained about not being able to read my Mac-created Word/Excel files on her computer.

Javin... you kinda hate Macs don't you?

[Sogni]

Originally posted by Javintosh
I just burned a CD using those instructions. I'll sent it on its way monday morning and see what happens (that's the first thing I tried waaay back then).

I should note, however, that most of my wife's parents are running Win98 and at work we are still using WinNT 4.0.

Has anyone had any luck getting MacOSX burned CDs to work with either of those Operating systems?

At the office (dayjob) we create Windows software CDs (I'm the IT & Tech Support Manager of a small software company) using a Mac (see my sig for this Mac's specs) with Disk Copy (the way I set it up is much simpler and quicker than Roxio Toast), and have shipped software cds to people with all versions of Windows imaginable (except for Windows 3.11 and lower) and no one has yet complained about it not working...

[Javintosh]

just wanted to answer plastic without having this thread turn into a flame war. This is how much I hate macs:

I have never owned *any* windows computers. Right now, there are 4 macs at home with 3 in active service at the moment (one running Yellow Dog Linux for my master's project).

I convinced the managers at work to buy macs (although we needed them, they refused until I brow beat them into it). I've been personally responsible for getting almost 40 macs installed at work over the last few years.

If at all possible, I buy things that are Mac-only. This includes:
SoundSticks
Keyspan DRM (before they release windows software)
Countour Design accessories for my mac (feet and flat top)
iMic

I will buy the ADC version of the Formac studio display (over teh DVI version) early next year because it is mac-only (and has obvious benefits).

I've aslo paid for a raft of shareware that I may not need to pay for, but I like to support the mac shareware developers.

That said, the computers at work do not come with CD burners so people often turn to the macs in the lab. To many of these people, that's their only exposure to Macs. So far, unless I'm using my personal mac (with Toast), their experiences with the mac have been somewhere between sort of bad to very bad.

If this has not been a huge issue to other people, I'll have to go back and take a look at the NT workstations at work...

PS>I may have been a little cranky yesterday after spending beautifull day slaving away on my master's project....

[Javintosh]

BTW, this is my current setup:
677Mhz G4
1.2GB of RAM
180GB of storage
dual 17" apple 1705 displays (soon to be replaced by formac's 21" LCD)
6 USB ports (with 6 USB controllers for maximum thoughput)
8 Firewire ports (2 controllers)

My HP printer is setup with the (mac-only) 175x appletalk ethernet to USB print server

[plastic]

Javin, I was just kidding. :P