Understand how to do most things, except for the most important.

[magnoliasouth]

This is terribly embarrassing. I get how to burn, how to convert files and what format to burn in and so on, but the one thing which eludes me is how to find my DVD burner on my computer. Yep... sad isn't it?

The little icon or whatever on my DVD thingy says it's a DVD R/RW. I assume that this means it has burning capability. It's a relatively new pc and when I purchased it, it said it could burn DVDs.

I have gone through each and every program and cannot figure out for the life of me how to find the software that was preinstalled.

I tried general Windows help and no surprise there, it found nothing to help me.

[manono]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

I have gone through each and every program and cannot figure out for the life of me how to find the software that was preinstalled.

What software? Software for burning? You don't need any. The best burning software is free. ImgBurn, or ImgTool Classic integrated with ImgBurn.

I'll assume you're actually talking about burning a completed DVD to disc, and not decrypting, encoding or authoring software.

Your DVD-RW should be visible in My Computer as DVD-RW Drive, followed by a letter. The burning software should see it easily, or maybe you'll have to point to it, I forget.

[JohnnyBob]

This is terribly embarrassing. I get how to burn, how to convert files and what format to burn in and so on, but the one thing which eludes me is how to find my DVD burner on my computer. Yep... sad isn't it?

-open Windows Explorer
-in the View menu select "Details"
-on the left side somewhere you should see My Computer
-doubleclick it or expand it
-if necessary click the "Folders" option in the toolbar
-you want to see a list of your devices and folders in the lefthand pane, and a list of their contents (when you click on them) in the righthand pane
-you will see a list of your disk drives on the left (each assigned an identifying letter), and one of them is your DVD drive

The little icon or whatever on my DVD thingy says it's a DVD R/RW. I assume that this means it has burning capability. It's a relatively new pc and when I purchased it, it said it could burn DVDs.

Yes, that's correct. It should burn DVDs. You'll want to look up the DVD drive model number, somehow, then you can search google for information about it. Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager brings up a list of devices on your computer, including your DVD drive. Expand it (click on the little + sign) and it should tell you the model number. You can rightclick the model number and select Properties to get some technical info about it.

I have gone through each and every program and cannot figure out for the life of me how to find the software that was preinstalled.

There are several ways to discover that kind of info, such as reading the user guide and specifications for your computer. That's usually available at the manufacturer's website. You can also look in Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs to see what's installed. Also see what's listed under Start > Programs (if using the classic windows desktop view). You should find shortcuts there to everything that's installed, so you can click on the shortcuts to explore each software individually (read its help option/file).

I tried general Windows help and no surprise there, it found nothing to help me.

I believe it's more useful to search at google, then just start reading.

[Cornucopia]

And getting some tools from this site is also a great help!