How to copy music to and from an audio CD in Windows XP (297015)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows Media Player for Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows Media Player for Windows XP Professional
  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional
This article was previously published under Q297015

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SUMMARY

This article describes how to copy music from an audio CD to the computer's local hard disk by using Windows Media Player (WMP). You can then copy the data back to an audio CD if you want to.

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MORE INFORMATION

Copy music files from an audio CD

  1. Insert the Audio CD and start Windows Media Player.
  2. If WMP is in Skin mode, press CTRL+1 to view WMP in Full mode.
  3. Click Copy from CD. Or, on the File menu, you can click Copy, click Copy from Audio CD, and then choose the drive from which you want to copy.
  4. Click to select each audio file that you want to copy. By default, all files that you have not already copied are selected.
  5. Click Copy Music. This copies the file into the My Documents\My Music folder by default.
Note: To change the default location into which you copy the files, refer to the "To Change Audio CD Copying Options" section in this article.

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Copy audio files from the hard disk to an audio CD

  1. In Windows Explorer, choose the files that you want to copy to the audio CD, and then click the Copy to Audio CD Web View task.
  2. In WMP, verify that the files that you wish to copy are in the playlist and that they are selected.
  3. Click Copy Music.
Note: You can copy .wma, .mp3, and .wav file types to an audio CD.

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Change audio CD copying options

  1. Start Windows Media Player.
  2. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then on the Copy Music tab, you can modify the following options:
    • Copy Music to This Location:
      • Change: Use this setting to set the folder into which you will copy the music files.
      • Advanced: Use this setting to configure the naming of the audio files.
    • Copy Settings:
      • File Format: Use this setting to choose the format into which you will copy the files. The default is Windows Media Audio (WMA), or you can use other file formats that you have installed.
      • Protect Content: Use this setting to specify the use of digital licensing for tracks that you copy from a CD. By licensing a file, you protect the author's copyright by preventing the file from being played on a different computer.
      • Copy Music at This Quality: Use this setting to set the bit rate in which to encode the music. You can encode .wma files in a bit rate from 48 kilobits per second (Kbps) to 192 Kbps.
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Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:1/15/2006
Keywords:kbenv kbHOWTOmaster kbsound KB297015 kbAudITPro
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