I just tested it, and the whole CDR story is bullshit. My backups run like a charm.
Maybe it's just the guys who did it had problems getting the CD-ROM to work. It works perfectly in my Win2K (of course, I'm sure it's using the configuration files I had modified to get the CD-ROM to work, since they are stored in the OS folder).
I only tested Nights. Can't really tell if it's faster or not, since I just got a "new" processor. But the sound sounds a bit more buggy. I wonder if there are any actual core changes to this version... it feels just like a new hack.