The inbuilt burner software in Vista is somewhat lacking and with Nero maker Ahead uninterested in releasing a Vista-capable installer until after the new operating system goes gold, you're fairly limited in terms of what you can burn with.
If you try to install the latest official version of Nero (7.5.1.1), it breaks. Ignoring the presence of DirectX 10, the installer wants to install DirectX 9.0c and it crashes when attempting to update the registry.
This is all regardless of whether it's run in compatibility mode or given a giant spoon of honey to lick. Nero just won't budge.
Well, it is possible to get it running, but it's highly unofficial.
One who goes by the name of 'hp38guser' has been releasing hacked-down versions of Nero for some time. The project is called Nero Lite and we have discovered that it just so happens to install and run on Vista without a hitch.
The project is growing in popularity and its purpose is to remove the superfluity that Nero is packaged with; such as a video editor and network media streamer.
It's essentially been reduced down to the core reason one installs Nero - to burn optical media. See here for a list of what has been taken out or replaced. You can even create an unattended installation thanks to the use of the free Inno Setup installer.
With this installer, under Vista, the registry error is gone. DirectX 9.0c also no longer wants to assassinate its younger sibling.
It does seem somewhat dodgy, seeing as it isn't an internal job, but this is much the same as how the popular Quicktime Alternative works; it's simply a chopped-up original that many people prefer.
Nonetheless, it certainly wouldn't be difficult to include malicious software. With over 17,000 downloads on Softpedia, however, it has retained its "100% Clean" status, so you can be reasonably assured that this is trustworthy. Or not - that's up to you.
Basically, install this at your own risk, you know, just in case I wasn't clear.
With that in mind, you need only download the latest Nero Lite installer and run through the install. We tried version 7.5.1.1 on a fresh slate of Vista 5728. It resulted in a flawless install.
