mig said:
I wonder what implications that might have on system resources and performance if any? Or has it been set to Manual for this purpose (permissions?)?  Anyone know?

By the way, I am currently installing Vista in a Virtual PC sandbox to continue testing, since the sandbox won't be on a domain I can maybe get more answers, I will check the status of the IMAPI service then and post my findings.


Edit: While waiting for that sandbox to install I decided to take a peek at the Services.msc on my machine and couldn't identify the IMAPI service, I am about to go back and look more in depth but I found it weird it's not called what it was in XP: "IMAPI CD-Burning COM Serivce"
Which by the way in XP is set to manual by default.

Edit 2: I just realized I won't be able to test this on either sandbox because Virtual PC doesn't emulate CDRW software; I was just reminded of this through my xp sandbox.  Oh well I guess I will be deleting that Vista sandbox now.

Edit 3: I just found this link to a webcast talking about IMAPI2 in Vista

Going to try to get that webcast now and see what they have to say Wink

Final edit: This webcast led me to the IMAPI forum on MSDN which had answers that I was looking for, I am still reading however so hopefully I will find a definitive answer there. I should have looked on MSDN Forums first though, so I feel a little silly sticking a post up here but now I know for next time Wink

Final edit v2: Standard users have access to the burning engine by deafult as I think someone posted above, the issue must be with the domain the machine I was testing on is in, there must be a group policy on that domain that prevents write access to optical devices by default, I'll have a chat with the administrator about it.

Thanks all.
Did you ever find a solution (to enable IMAPI use for standard users?)  I'm having the same problem on Windows Server 2008.  In my test setup, I'm the domain administrator, and I've configured the group policy according to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb540662(VS.85).aspx">http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb540662(VS.85).aspx

After configuring the group policy as directed, I'm still not able to get IMAPI to work (IDiscMaster.EnumDiscRecorders returns an empty list) while running as a standard user.  When I'm logged in as an administrator, I can see the DiscRecorder device through IMAPI.

Here's a nice simple CD Burning app which provides a repro case for this problem:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/winsdk/CD_Burner.aspx

Run it as an adminstrator - see the DVD burner.  Run it as a standard user - no DVD burner.