You open Windows Media Player just as you open any app or desktop app: You just start typing its name on the Start screen. You’ll see Windows Media Player in the results and can click the result once to open the app.

After Windows Media Player opens, if you’re prompted to choose a setup option, choose the Recommended Settings; you can always go back and customize them if desired. Depending on the options you choose, the types of media already on your Windows 8–based computer, music shared by other computers on your network, and other factors (such as other media apps you’ve installed and the type of media you’ve collected with them), you might see that some media (but perhaps not all of it) is already available. By default, Media Player populates itself automatically with compatible music from the Music library and will do the same with media from the Pictures library and Videos library. You’ll also see an entry in the Navigation pane if there’s a CD in the CD/DVD drive. The Navigation pane is shown here:

While using Windows Media Player, you might also notice entries under Other Libraries. If you do, media sharing is already set up on your network, and media stored in those libraries is available to you on your Windows 8–based computer. You must specifically state that you want to share media with other networked computers; it isn’t something that is enabled by default. To do that, open Windows Media Player at the desired networked computers and click the Stream list to configure sharing. You may see other options than the ones shown here.

When you look closely at Windows Media Player, you’ll see that several items run across the top of the interface. There are Back and Forward buttons, a Search window, and an icon to change the view. These probably look familiar to you if you’ve read other chapters in this book.

The titles you see (such as the name of your media library, the library that is currently selected, and how the data in that library is currently sorted) might differ from what you see here, though. You can click the arrow beside any title name to change the library you are in or the media you are browsing. What you see when you click a right-facing arrow depends on which arrow you click. To change from the current library (for example, Music) to another (for example, Recorded TV), you click the arrow just before Music. (Depending on the type of media you own, you might see an option for Other Media.)

To narrow down what’s shown in any selected library, such as Music, click the arrow that appears directly after the name of the selected library. For example, you could show only music from a specific genre rather than all your music.

Beyond the lists for Organize, Stream, and Create Playlist detailed later in this chapter, there are tabs for Play, Burn, and Sync.

There are many ways to populate your Windows 8–based computer with music. You can buy music from the Xbox Music Store. You can copy the media from another computer, you can access the media from a shared drive on your home network, and you can copy music from a portable music player. You can also copy the music from CDs you currently own in a process known as ripping.

When you rip a CD, there are several settings you can configure prior to copying the songs; you’ll use these options to change the default settings if you need to. You might need to change settings when you rip a CD if you plan to copy the songs to an older MP3 player that doesn’t support the default Windows Media Audio format. You might also want to increase or decrease the Audio Quality settings. Lower quality takes up less storage space, but higher quality sounds better. You might also opt to eject the CD automatically after the rip has completed, which is a good option if you plan to sit down and rip your entire music collection. As you might have guessed, there are even more options from which to choose.

In this exercise, you’ll rip a CD, use the highest quality setting, and opt to eject the CD after the rip is complete.

You are likely to already be familiar with playlists: A list of songs on a CD or album is a playlist. The older mixed tapes with which you might be familiar were playlists, too. So it’s probably no surprise to you that you can create playlists that consist of your own music in Windows Media Player. You can create playlists for almost any occasion, including parties, workout routines, or even meditation sessions. After a playlist is created, you can synchronize it to other devices, burn it to a CD, and share it across your home network.

Creating a playlist is simple, if you haven’t created one yet. In the Navigation pane, click Playlists, and you will see the Click Here prompt to create your first one. After you’ve done that, you name the playlist, locate the songs to add to it, and drag them into it. You’ll use a similar dragging process to create a playlist to burn to a CD, detailed later in this section; read that section if you aren’t sure how to drag the files to the new playlist.

If you already have playlists, the option to Click Here to create one will not display. In that case, you can either add songs to an existing playlist or create a new one by clicking Create Playlist on the menu bar at the top of the window.

To add songs to an existing playlist or a new playlist you just created, locate the song to add, and then drag it on top of the playlist’s name. Note that songs you drag to playlists aren’t moved there; only the titles are added to the list. The music files remain in whatever folders they normally reside in on the hard disk.

You can also create another kind of playlist—an auto playlist. When you create an auto playlist, you name it and then set criteria. Criteria can be almost anything; Windows Media Player will use the criteria you set to create a playlist automatically. For instance, you can create an auto playlist that contains only songs added to your library before or after a specific date or songs that you’ve played the most in the past year. After criteria are set, your playlist will be created and automatically managed. To start an auto playlist, on the menu bar, click Create Playlist, and then click Auto Playlist.

You can burn any playlist you create to a CD, provided it will fit and you have the required rights to copy the music. A typical CD holds about 80 minutes of music. If your playlist won’t fit on one CD, you’ll be prompted to span it over several (which is often the case with audio books and auto playlists). If you don’t already have a playlist created that you want to copy to a CD, you can create one on the go during the CD creation process.

In this exercise, you’ll burn a CD that contains music you like in the form of a playlist.

Now that you understand the interface, how to navigate to various music tracks, and how to create playlists, spend some time playing the music you have on your computer. Playing music here is quite similar to playing music in the Music app you’ve already explored; you just select the song to play and use the controls to manage playback.

You can share the media you’ve acquired on your Windows 8–based computer with compatible computers and devices on your network. Devices can include tablets, media centers, smart phones, and Microsoft Xbox sets. For these other devices to gain access, however, you must enable streaming options in Windows Media Player. To do this, on the menu bar, click Stream.

There are varying options on the Stream menu, and what you see depends on how your computer and network are configured. You must click the desired option to access their features and settings.

After it is configured, your media library will appear on allowed network devices.

So far, you’ve learned about Windows Media Player. As you learned in the introduction of this chapter, Windows Media Center is another media option that offers access to, management of, and the ability to play and watch any media that are available to you. It offers more features than Media Player, including the ability to record live TV, provided that your computer is equipped with the proper hardware. You can use Windows Media Center instead of your current Digital Video Recorder (DVR) if you decide you like it.

You have to get Windows Media Center yourself; it’s an available add-on feature and is not included with Windows 8.1 by default. There are two options for obtaining Windows Media Center. One is to add the Windows 8.1 Pro Pack, which is what you’ll do if you are running Windows 8.1; it costs $99. The other option is to add the Windows 8.1 Media Center Pack, which is what you’ll do if you are running Windows 8.1 Pro; it costs $9.99. Don’t worry, when you click I Want To Buy A Product Key Online in Step 2, you’ll be prompted as to which is suitable for your computer system.

When you start Windows Media Center, the setup process begins. You can choose Express or Custom. Because there are so many choices, it’s generally best to choose Custom. When you choose Custom, you’ll set up Windows Media Center by walking through each step of the configuration process.

During setup, you might be prompted to do the following:

You’ll see the main screen when Windows Media Center is ready.

You can navigate the Windows Media Center interface by using touch (if you have a compatible monitor), by using the arrow keys, by using a mouse, and even by using a compatible remote. At the main landing page, move up and down and left and right to see everything that’s offered. You’ll see various categories in which you can view and manage all of your media libraries.

With Windows Media Center you can do the following (with the required hardware):