Copying Music to and from a CD Using Windows Media Player

Since Windows Media Player ships free with Microsoft XP it provides the simplest way to copy music to or from a CD using your computer. Windows Media Player can be accessed through the Start menu: Start->Programs->Accessories->Entertainment->Windows Media Player.

Copy Music from CD to your computer using Windows Media Player
To copy your music you will need to open the CD copy window. Depending on your version of Media Player you will need to either click on the "Copy from CD" tab on the left, click on the "Rip" button on the toolbar at the top or go to View->Go To->Copy from CD. If you have not already you can now insert your audio CD in the CD drive and a list of songs on the CD will be displayed in the CD copy window.

Make sure the songs you want to copy have check marks in the check boxes to the left of the title. Click in the check box to add or remove a check mark. Now you are ready to copy the songs selected.

Click the "Copy Music" button on the toolbar at the top. At the bottom of the window you should notice a line that reads something similar to "# tracks checked to copy to C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\My Music", the "#" will go to "0" when all songs are copied. The "Copy Music" button will change to "Stop Copy" while the copying, after the copy the button will return to "Copy Music" but may be grayed out. Each song will also show a copy status bar to the right of the title as it is being copied.

The songs selected have now been copied to your computer and have been added to the Windows Media Player Media Library. To access the Media Library you can either click on the Media Library tab to the left, or go to View->Go To->Media Library. The songs will be stored together under the album or artist name

The songs can also be accessed without opening Windows Media Player by using the "My Computer" icon on your desktop. Open "My Computer", then open the "My Documents" folder, and finally open the "My Music" folder. The songs will be in a folder with the name of the album or artist

Copy Music to a CD from your computer using Windows Media Player
To copy your music to a CD you will need to open the CD burner window. This is accessed in the same way as you accessed the CD copy window. Next, insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW into the CD burner drive

Click the "Edit Playlist" button at the top right of the left pane. This will open the Edit Playlist dialog box. In the left pane of the Edit Playlist window, click on the album or artist name to see a list of songs. Click on the name of each song to add them to your playlist in the right pane. You can add as many songs from as many albums or artists as you desire by repeating the previous two steps. You can change the order of the songs in the playlist (the order of songs in the playlist will be the order on the CD) by clicking the blue arrows under the right pane. Click OK when you have added the desired songs and are happy with the order.

Click the "Copy" button on the toolbar at the top. At the bottom of the window you should notice a line that reads something similar to "# items, total time 60 minutes", the total time is a best estimate and the "#" will go to "0" when all songs are copied. The "Copy" button will change to "Stop" while the copying. Each song will also show a copy status bar to the right of the title as it is being copied. The songs have now been copied or "burned" to CD