How to tell when a disc job has finished

You don't have to watch the window. Burn by Zaweba shows every job's progress on its taskbar button and its tray icon, and when the job finishes it plays a short chime and shows a tray notification. You can switch the sound and notification off in Settings if you'd rather work in silence.

Disc jobs take time. A full backup with checking, a CD saved as FLAC or several copies of a disc can run for a while, and it's natural to get on with something else.

Watching progress from the taskbar

While a job runs, Burn's button on the Windows taskbar fills up as the work goes on, the same way a download does in many programs. The tray icon by the clock shows progress too. A glance at either tells you roughly how far along things are without bringing Burn back to the front.

This works for every kind of job: burning a data disc or audio CD, writing an image, making an ISO from a folder, reading a disc to an image, erasing a rewritable disc, copying a disc, saving an audio CD as files, and backups and restores.

The chime and the notification

When the job ends, Burn plays a short chime and shows a tray notification. The chime is the useful part if you've walked away from the desk, since you'll hear it from across the room. The notification tells you the job is done when you come back to the screen.

For multi-disc backups and copies, the sound is also a cue that Burn needs you. When a backup spans several discs, Burn asks for each in turn, for example Insert disc 2 of 4, and Copy disc asks for a blank after reading the original.

Leave the disc in the drive until the chime, rather than guessing from the progress bar. Taking a disc out while Burn is still checking it means the check never finishes, and you won't know for sure whether that disc is good.

Turning the sound off

Open Settings with Ctrl+, and look for Play a sound when a job finishes. Turn it off and both the chime and the notification stop. Taskbar and tray progress carry on as before, so you can still see when a job is running.

Some people like it off in a shared office, or late at night. It's a single switch, and you can turn it back on any time.

Done is not the same as checked

A finished job is worth more when it's been checked. With Check every disc after burning on, which is recommended, Burn reads every file back and compares it with the original before the job counts as done. That takes a few minutes longer, so the chime comes a little later, but it tells you the disc is good, not just written.

For backups, the backup log keeps a record of each run, including whether the check passed, so if you missed the notification you can see the result later under Tools > Backup log.

Burn by Zaweba is free and offline. Start a job, go and make a cup of tea, and come back when you hear the chime.