Create a bootable CD / DVD in Windows 10, using the Free ISO Burner program

You don't even need to have a CD / DVD burning software installed on your PC. This tutorial will show you how to get a freeware program called "Free ISO Burner", specifically designed to burn bootable CDs / DVDs from ISO disc image files. Steps in this tutorial will also work on Windows XP / Vista: the only real system requirement is that your computer must have an optical drive that can burn CDs/DVDs. Your choice of CD or DVD comes from the size of the ISO file: a CD has a typical capacity of just over 700 megabytes, whereas a DVD can typically hold up to 4.7 gigabytes of data (4,700 megabytes). In this tutorial, we will burn the Windows 10 Insider Preview ISO (disc image) onto a DVD, but what you burn doesn't impact how you burn it.

ISO Burning software for Windows

There are plenty of freeware options to burn disc image files, like ISO Recorder, ImgBurn, Free ISO Creator, or AnyToISO. We picked Free ISO Burner for five reasons: note that one or more of those might also apply to the other names we just mentioned, we just haven't tried them yet.

• It's completely free.
• It's a very small download, at well under one megabyte.
• It's clean: it doesn't come with an installer, so it won't create start menu entries and shortcuts all over your system. It won't change your homepage to something spammy, and won't add itself to the registry or Windows Explorer context menu (what appears when you right-click on files and folders).
• It's so easy to use that anyone can figure it out - no advanced skills needed.
• It's easy to remove, since it doesn't install itself: just delete the application file itself when you no longer need it, and that's it!
• As a sixth, bonus reason, it will also run on Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Download Free ISO Burner

First, download Free ISO burner from FreeISOBurner.com. The download link is at the very bottom. You don't need to install anything: the file you just downloaded is the executable itself (this is the program, in other words). Since we'll use it in a second, save it to your desktop (the software will be easy to find).

Burn your bootable DVD

Once you've downloaded the ISO file you want to burn, insert a writable CD/DVD in the disc tray: if any dialog opens, close it (like Windows Explorer or another CD burning software package).

On the screenshot on the left, Windows 7 opened the "How do you want to use this disc?" - we'll just click on the Cancel button to get rid of it.

Now launch Free ISO Burner: just double-click on the file you just downloaded.

Click on the "Open" button at the top, and navigate to the ISO file to burn:

Next, select the writable CD / DVD from the "Drive" dropdown menu:

Type a meaningful description in the "Volume Label" text box: this text should appear in Windows Explorer when the CD/DVD is popped into the optical drive tray or slot. Just leave the other settings to their defaults - "Burn Speed" as "Max", and "Cache Size" to 32 MB ("megabytes").

Ready now: burn your disc image

Review your selections one last time, and click on the "Burn" button at the bottom to get started. The creating process will take a while, but exactly how long depends mostly on the size of the disc image (ISO file) you are burning. Ideally avoid CPU-intensive tasks while your media is being engraved.

Test your DVD / CD

At the end of the process, Free ISO Burner will automatically eject the CD/DVD. To double-check that the disc was properly engraved, by pushing the CD or CD tray back in. In Windows Explorer, the DVD should appear with the name you typed in the "Volume Label" text box. If not, it's probably because your label was over 11 characters long, and Free ISO Burner "truncated" (shortened) it.