As is now sadly the norm with seemingly every media-related program that we install onto our test machines, Nero 8 is keen, upon installation, to be the default app for every form of media possible on our PC. It's got manners, so it does give you the option of changing what it associates itself with, but the default list of audio, video and image files that pops up is eye-watering.

It's also indicative of how Nero has grown - in many senses - over the years. As with its ongoing main rival Easy Media Creator, Nero has long since eschewed its roots as a simple burning application. Now it's more of an all-encompassing suite, with individual tools to help you capture and edit audio, manipulate your images, design disc covers, record DVDs, back-up your computer, stream media and play back movies and music.

You can access all of these functions individually through the start menu, or there's the now-traditional Nero StartSmart that makes a really good fist of gluing all of the parts together. StartSmart is one of the few areas of Nero to undergo any kind of notable change, and it's a treasure-trove for the less experienced user, allowing them to choose what they want by function rather than meaningless program name. Logically laid out, it allows you to perform a basic burn from its menu screen, but also gives easy access to the sizeable number of functions that Nero can support. It's a good improvement on the more cumbersome equivalent from Nero 7

Download it Here : Part 1

                                  Part 2