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Hi all. I have the full versions of both programs and both are updated. I nthe past, I have been used to using the Roxio software but wanted to look at nero for the first time. BTW, I have a new LG 8481b (49x24x48). There a aspects of the Roxio that I am used to using and like, such as Scan Disc and data recovery. I cannot find the equivalent with the Nero software. Although it too seems to have some nice features that Roxio does not. Can anyone with experience using both shed some more light on the differences and pros and cons betweeen the two? Further, can i use both on my PC (WinME)? I have both DirectCD and InCD from the startup sequence and I launch either or manually prior to inserting a disc. Could this be a problem at all?
One final question: what is 'InCD' and what does it do? How is it different from the nero.exe program?
Thanks in advance!!

To answer your last question first, InCD is Nero's packet writing software. It lets you treat a disc like a big floppy. It differs from Direct CD in one major respect: as far as I know, it will only write to RW discs, whereas DirectCD will write to plain old CD-Rs. I use DCD all the time to bring large files back and forth from work, and love it. True, you lose the space written to disc when you use it (I'm assuming here that with InCD you can recover space, being that it uses rewritable media), but CD-Rs are cheap and the process hasn't yet failed me.

I am not as familiar with Nero, having only used it a few time, but I like it's wizard and the fine-tuning options it offers when creating boot CDs. In my book, both programs have lots to offer.

Yes, InCD works with CD-RW discs only.

It is not recommended to run both DirectCD and InCD on the same box (well, some versions can coexist, but in general you may expect problems). Thus, if you prefer DirectCD, you should uninstall InCD, or vice versa, in which case you may need to take a look at the guide

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=9597

Note that even when you prevent DirectCD or InCD from starting on bootup, their drivers are loaded anyway, so conflicts may arise.

In another forum, www.hardwareguys.com, the Ahead products, Nero and InCD, have the favorable consensus. I would expect that to be a generally widespread consensus also.

I use the Ahead S/W, bundled with my drive, and am quite satisfied with it. Actually, having used it previously as it was also bundled with a previous drive, it became a yes/no criterion on the selection of my current drive.

No, Nero does not have a convenient, easy to use, boot partition-backup-disaster recovery-restore capability. I use the Dantz Retrospect for that purpose. There may be others out there that are equally capable, I just have no knowledge of them.

Slim