If your application needs to check on a system whether a CD burner is installed, and you know that you are running on Windows XP, then you can check the registry.
Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft equipped their operating system with CD burning capabilities as part of Explorer. Therefore, the registry holds a key under Explorer now, called:
Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CD Burning
On XP, you can use the wrapper function HasCDBurner() : boolean as shown below.
function HasCDBurner : boolean;
var
reg: TRegistry;
begin { HasCDBurner }
reg := TRegistry.Create;
try
reg.RootKey := HKEY_CURRENT_USER;
reg.OpenKey('Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CD Burning',
False);
Result := reg.ValueExists('CD Recorder Drive');
reg.CloseKey
finally
reg.Free
end; { try }
end; { HasCDBurner }