So I've not tried much else.

I have used Ashampoo Media Player which works pretty well.

What media player do you use ? Most of them have the ability to burn

Nero is very buggy. It was always freezing and crashing when I was using it. Try Roxio. I've found it to be much better.

Why bother making matters more complicated?

is EAC or Exact Audio Copy.
It's a bit fiddly at first but it does what it says and it's free.

I've used Nero since version 3 and I prefer it to Roxio and before that Adaptec but if you've got problems I can understand why you want to move on. Now that Windows has burning facilities built into it (since XP) I don't know how much any add on application makes use of them. It may be a basic Windows problem you're having so before you buy something new I think I'd try something free. CD Burning XP Pro (http://cdburnerxp.se/) is excellent and is anyone familiar with Roxio will be at home with it. I would expect, if it works that you wouldn't look any further but at least it won't cost anything trying.

I'm currently running Nero 8, as nothing in any of the later versions has enticed me to upgrade. In my experience, the thing that causes the most problems with burning software is having more than one sort installed. Even if you've 'uninstalled' the alternatives, some burning software still misbahaves. In this repect, the worst offender is, or was a little while ago, Roxio.

I gave up using Roxio on another PC (upon which it had already been installed) due to endless problems, and reverted to EAC, which is pretty much all you really need anyway. The Roxio software was particularly good at mucking about with settings in the OS that affected the way drives behaved on disc insertions. It is a strict no no for an application to make machine level changes which affect operations that do no involve its own use. It had to go.

Part of the problem for Windows machines is the crappy way the low level software (ASPI layer etc) in the OS has evolved, and if you want a single software suite solution, ideally you need a PC that has had NO burning software added to it from which to start. If you start with a blank canvas, Nero is, in my opinion, the best overall commercial package, and the least likely to mess up.

...I sympathise with your problem. You may find that you need to disable Nero Scout - worked for me.

Ashampoo Burning studio 6.....Free and a piece of cake to use.

will see how I go using those links on descouting nero

if not then will try some others

It is 9.53 am on Monday so ....whispers....I'm at work and the offending program is at home . Will let you know how I go.

A bit dated now? Given the limited storage capacity of the shiny disc, wouldn't a datakey be a better plan? All my stuff of any import is stored remotely, on a 8GB key or on my laptop. Plus, of course, the iPod. Other people elsewhere who have enormous video files like remote hard-drives.

Actually, thinking about it, why would you want to stick anything on a CD? Most car stereos have USB ports now or somewhere to plug in an MP3 player. And, if you don't have such a bit of ICE kit, go buy one. Cheaply.

Both free and at least as good as Nero. Burrrn can handle FLAC files etc without a blip. Both can do gapless CDs.

http://www.burrrn.net/?page_id=4

http://cdburnerxp.se/

As for Nero, anything after version 6 has been slated for being w-a-a-a-y too buggy. Roxio after version 7 is apparently best forgotten.

....you should probably try, but since you mentioned it's a PC and I'll make a huge assumption it's Windows, Windows Media Player can burn discs for the car too, whether you want data or audio. If you're on WMP 10 or 11 it has been pretty good for a while.

It might also depend more on what you are burning (presumably music) and how it was ripped onto the computer (encoded in iTunes AAC, WMP WMA, MP3, other). If it were me I'd probably go path of least resistance (iTunes for AAC rips, WMP for WMA rips, anything you like for MP3), but there are bound to be tools that can cover more combinations.

< EDIT - Just noticed your later comment about using AAC lossless - definitely investigate iTunes features then. I'm using WMA lossless and WMP for the same reasons >

I'm also using an old OEM freebie of Roxio (v2 I believe) that came with a disc drive, and it persistently throws driver error messages under Vista but it still works. Unfortunately the default settings means my data discs (Word podcasts and the like) don't play in the car system, but the same data discs written by WMP are fine.

I also have iTunes for my son's Nano, which in turn brings in QuickTime, which is just another set of software to keep updated and patched....