Multisession DVD RW for Current Installation.

[Proneax]

I've been trying to figure out the best way to have an unattended install that includes programs I want to have the latest versions of, like winamp and firefox, without re-burning the entire disk.

Well, I finally figured out that you can use nero to delete or update single files on a cd or dvd rw without affecting other files. So, once a month you could update your cd/dvd with the latest program versions. The only drawback is that it doesn't actually 'erase' the files, so they still take up space, but you can't 'see' them on the disk. - meaning you can add updates until you run out of extra disk space.

A couple of specific things you have to do for this to work the best:

-first burn a session with all 'permanent' files (name it 'Permanent')

-have a reference in cmdlines.txt (or something) to the batch file in your 'updates' session.

- burn a session with all 'updatable' files, including the batch file to install them / add them to runonce. (name it 'update_1')

The reason for multiple sessions/names is when you go to update, you have to pick a session to update from. Having separate sessions just gives more flexibility.

- To update files you can do one of several things:

1.) keep an image of your 'updates' folder on disk, change anything necessary in that folder, then in the 'new compilation' window multisession tab in nero, under 'options' select 'delete files' 'add new' and 'replace file/date'. After you select the updates session, it should automatically update the cd with any changes in that directory (it has to be the same directory you originally burned the files from). It will give you some statistics so you can check, and also bold the files to be updated.

2.) You can manually select current files on the disk and just hit 'delete' or if you copy new files of the same name you can 'replace' the old files.

Given the fact that these options are pretty apparent to anyone using nero I'm not sure if a lot of people know this already, but I figured I would throw it out there as I just figured it out.

I can post more details if anyone wants.

[glent]

Nice tip will try sometime