If you use the "Search" button in Vegas, and then type "VCD," you should get help that describes how to do make a VCD. Here is what the first paragraph says:

From the Tools menu, choose Burn CD and choose Video CD from the submenu to render your project and burn it to a Video CD (VCD).

Is this how you created your CD? If not, then it won't play in a standard DVD player.

Also, a few older DVD players won't play VCD (CDs with specially prepared video). Click on this link and then enter your brand and model DVD player to see what it is capable of playing:

DVDrHelp Compatibility Guide

You wife probably does not have a VCD player on her PC. Do a search on Google for a downloadable freeware VCD, or file player. OR use the WMP template in Vegas to make a CD that will play in your Windows Media Player. Or in XP, in My Computer, use Explorer to find the rendered files you want to put on a CD, and use the 'copy to CD button' on the left. They will also play on a PC in WMP. The version of WMP your wife has at work makes a difference also, RAM, OS and on and on. Good Luck, John.

As has been pointed out search in the help for VCD or even SVCD. However if you mean you tried to burn a multimedia CD that is something all together different. Or there is no thrid party DVD/VCD/SVCD player installed. (You don't actually need anything but the Windows Media Player to play a VCD)

If you want to make a VCD that is playable with windows media player - I guess I should say backwords compatable - you need to create an "asx" file that tells the media player where to look. I don't think there is a program that does this for you however - but it isn't that hard.

I would also suggest getting a program called "AutoPlay Media Studio" to create your menus with. When I create a VCD I use this for the computer side of it. Meaning when I put the VCD on a desktop unit it ignores the PC relatedfiles and data but when you put in into a PC it will autorun and bring up a menu - in my case I ask something like "Play with PowerDVD?" or "Play with Window Media Player?" If the user click the player that will open and if they click on the WMP option it directs to the "asx" file.

Here is my little 'one size fits all' ASX template:

<ASX version = "3.0">

<TITLE>PROGRAM TITLE</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>YOUR NAME HERE</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>© 2003 YOUR NAME</COPYRIGHT>
<ABSTRACT>FOR MORE INFO</ABSTRACT>
<MOREINFO HREF = "http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com" />

<ENTRY>
<TITLE>FIRST VIDEO THAT WILL PLAY</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>YOUR NAME HERE</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>© 2003 YOUR NAME</COPYRIGHT>
<DURATION VALUE="RUN TIME OF THIS SEGMENT ie:00:09:34" />
<REF HREF = "LOCATION OF THIS FILE - FOR VCD'S THIS WOULD BE IN THE "MPEGAV/" FOLDER - ie - MPEGAV/avseq01.dat" />
</ENTRY>

<ENTRY>
<TITLE>NEXT VIDEO PORTION THAT WILL PLAY</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>YOUR NAME HERE</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>© 2003 AGAIN WITH THE NAME</COPYRIGHT>
<DURATION VALUE="01:55:62" />
<REF HREF = "MPEGAV/avseq02.dat" />
</ENTRY>

<ENTRY>
<TITLE>NEXT VIDEO PORTION</TITLE>
<AUTHOR>MORE NAME</AUTHOR>
<COPYRIGHT>© 2003 WHAT IS IN A NAME ANYWAY?</COPYRIGHT>
<DURATION VALUE="05:59:01" />
<REF HREF = "MPEGAV/avseq03.dat" />
</ENTRY>

- Now continue this for as many segmants/chapter that you have. -

</ASX>

And that is it - you save this file with a name such as "_play.asx" and viola! The important things with this are the run times and names/locations of each file.

Of course if this isn't what yo umeant it was all pointless wasn't it? :)