Modern DVD burner is a necessity for normal PC use, helping you to free some space on your HDD from time to time, by writing data you want to keep but don’t use that often to a permanent carrier. There are 2 ways of writing – you can write some files now, close the session, write some later and close again, and so on, until the free space finishes, or you can write all at once and finalize disk, making it impossible to be written.

Control how disks are written globally

Windows 7 closes sessions automatically as the disk write operation is complete and you eject the disk. But if you often need session to be left open to add more files later, making the DVD behave more like a backup memory, you may change the default setting going into the DVD burner “Properties”, go to the “Recording” tab, select “Global settings”, and click on the desired mode of operation checkbox to change the default behavior for single session or multisession disks.

How to manually close session if you have changed default behavior

If you have changed the above option, in order to save space from session closes or by any other reason, you must manually close session or finalize disk before you can use it in any other PC or DVD player. You can still use this disk in the computer you have opened session with, but in case of problems you will not be able to finish the session and will loose information. You can manually close the session any time – Open Computer by clicking the “Start” button, and then click “Computer”. In Windows Explorer, click the disc burner drive, and then click “Close session” on the toolbar. The session will be closed, so the disc can be used in other computers.

Remember that even though you will see disk and files in Windows Explorer on the computer you have opened the burning session, some programs need it to be closed or finalized to be able to use it. SO if you have problems with some of your software – close this session – the space lost is 20-30MB – not that much, compared to the safety of your information.