Playing Audio Files

TIP

If you'd rather not use these transport controls, just pull down the Play menu and select either Play/Pause or Stop.

Now that we have all that messy configuration and customization out of the way, let's get down to the important stuff using WMP to play audio files!

Normal Playback

You can use WMP to play audio files that are stored on your computer or downloaded from the Internet, or to play back songs from a normal audio CD.

CD playback should start automatically when you insert a CD into your PC's CD drive. To play back a digital audio file, you first have to load that file into the player by selecting File, Open, or by double-clicking on a file in WMP's Library.

The player's transport controls are located at the bottom of the main window. You start playback by clicking the Play button, or pause playback by clicking the Pause button. (It's the same button it says Play when playback is paused or stopped, and Pause when a song is playing.) You stop playback completely by clicking the Stop button.

You don't have to play the entire song from start to finish. The Seek slider indicates where you are in a song. You can move the slider anywhere in the song, and playback resumes from the point you selected.

You also can choose to play the songs on a CD in a random order. Just select Play, Shuffle, and WMP will shuffle randomly through the tracks on the CD.

Adjusting the Volume

If the sound is too loud (or not loud enough), you can change the volume by dragging the Volume slider to the right (louder) or left (softer). If you need to mute the sound quickly, click the Mute button to the left of the Volume slider. Click the Mute button again to unmute the sound.

CAUTION

Internet radio streamed in the RealMedia (RealAudio or RealVideo) format can't be played with WMP. For these files, you'll need to use the RealMedia player, discussed in the "Using Other Media Players" section, later in this chapter.