The Best Way to Get an .Exe File Onto a CD

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Moving an executable file (or program file) onto a CD is a simple process. There are a number of tools available to burn the program to disk. One word of caution: if you choose to buy a CD-burning program, make sure you purchase one that is widely recommended. Many free or shareware tools aren't reliable--they will not write your files to the CD and also render the CD useless for future use.

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Preparing to Burn to a CD Using Windows

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Insert a blank disk into the CD-RW or CD-R drive. You must ensure the CD-ROM is in a writable or rewritable drive; otherwise, it won't be able to read the disk or write on it. Once you insert the disk, a window will pop up. Within this window, highlight the "Open Writable CD Folder Using Windows Explorer" option and press "OK".

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Drag and Drop the .Exe File to a CD

When the folder is up, minimize it. To drag-and-drop into the new window, you need the folder containing the .exe file open. Open the folder in which the file is held; if it's not in an easy-to-find folder (for example, on your desktop), open the "My Documents" folder and navigate to the appropriate folder using the address bar at the top of the screen.

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Once you find the appropriate folder, make both windows equally visible. The easiest way to accomplish this is by right-clicking the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen and choosing the option to "Tile Windows Vertically", which will place the two windows side-by-side.

Next, drag-and-drop the file you need to the CD window. Locate the file to be copied, click on it and hold down. Next, move your cursor over to the CD window and release the mouse. Windows will pop up a transfer screen, which will let you know how long it will take for the process to complete. After you have moved all files to the CD window, click the link on the upper-left of the window to "Write these files to CD." Be patient; it will take a couple minutes to write the file to CD. When the process completes, close both windows and remove the CD.

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CD Burning Tips to Remember

Standard writable and rewritable CDs only hold 650 megabytes--high capacity CDs hold 800 megabytes. If your .exe file is larger than these supported sizes, you'll need multiple CDs or a DVD and DVD-RW drive.

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If there's extra space on your CD after your .exe file is burned, you can store more files without any repercussions. Remember, though, that a CD-R can only be written on once--you can't delete anything after it's complete. However, you can write to a CD-RW as frequently as you need.

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