Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Wake Up with Windows XP
  • Hour 1. Taking a Bird's-Eye Look at Windows XP
  • Hour 2. Getting Started with Windows XP
  • Hour 3. Managing the Windows XP Interface
  • Part II: Morning Windows Desktop Exploration
  • Hour 4. Working with the My Computer Window
  • Hour 5. Navigating Files with Windows Explorer
  • Hour 6. Calling for Help
  • Hour 7. Improving Your Windows Desktop Experience
  • Part III: Early Afternoon Windows Exploration
  • Hour 8. Installing Programs with Windows XP
  • Hour 9. Finding Files, Folders, and Friends
  • Hour 10. Using the Desktop Accessories
  • Part IV: Late Afternoon Internet Integration
  • Hour 11. Surfing the Web with Internet Explorer
  • Hour 12. Tying Windows into the Web
  • Hour 13. Networking with Windows XP
  • Hour 14. Managing E-mail and Newsgroups with Outlook Express
  • Part V: An Evening with Advanced Windows
  • Hour 15. Exploring Your Hardware Interface
  • Hour 16. Understanding Printing and Fonts
  • Hour 17. Using Windows on the Road
  • Hour 18. Giving Windows XP a Tune-Up
  • Hour 19. Managing Your Hard Drives
  • Hour 20. Tinkering with the Advanced System Tools
  • Part VI: Having Fun at Nighttime
  • Hour 21. Using Media Player
    • Introducing the Windows Media Player
    • Using AutoPlay
    • Changing the Look of the Windows Media Player
    • The Media Guide
    • CD Audio Extras
    • The Media Library and Playlists
    • A Radio in Your PC
    • Downloading to a Portable Player
    • What About Video?
    • Playing DVD Movies
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 22. Picturing Windows XP Graphics
  • Hour 23. Making Movies with Windows XP
  • Hour 24. Advanced Windows XP Tips
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Differences Between the Windows Home and Professional Edition
  • Appendix B. Glossary
  • Appendix C. Answers to Quizzes

CD Audio Extras

When you select View, Now Playing Tools, a list of options appear from which you can select. Depending on the support of the CD's publisher, you can see original album art as shown in Figure 21.5 when you select Media Information. Some publishers provide song lyrics that you can see as the music plays when you select the Lyrics option. At any point, if you click the More button in the Media Information window, Internet Explorer opens to a Web site that details album information about the CD you're currently playing and gives you the opportunity to order other CDs by the same artist.

Figure 21.5 The CD Audio window gives you more information, often in a multimedia format, including the original CD case's cover art.

You can even record tracks and the entire CD from the CD Audio window, as you'll see in the following To Do item.

To Do: Recording CD Tracks

1. Click the Copy from CD button on the left side of the Windows Media Player.
2. Click to check every track you want to record. Uncheck those tracks you don't want to record.
3. Click Copy Music and the tracks you've selected will record, along with the track information such as title and artist. The music plays and is recorded to your folder named My Music located in the My Documents folder. To organize your files, Windows Media Player creates a folder for the artist, with all albums you've recorded for that artist in their own subfolders, and individual files inside those folders named with the actual track names. Windows Media Player stores the track files in the default Windows Media Player format with the .WMA filename extension.

4. After selecting File, Open from the Windows Media Player menu, you can open any music you've stored and select as many songs as you want by holding Ctrl while clicking on the tracks.

Figure 21.6 Windows Media Player offers to protect your content.

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