After closing out the automatic popup and opening an explorer window to browse a blank disk in the dvd burner(Vista here) the screen capture here shows what Windows will then display.
The new version has it's own writer built into it. simply clicking on the link for the drive in the left column brings that up. When XP is booted into I would simply see a blank windows when going to browse the drive with a blank in it. If Nero reports a need for a blank disk while one is in the drive probably needs replacing.