Using your computer to collect, manage, and play music is a lot of fun. You can build up a collection of all your favorite songs, make custom CDs from those songs, or copy them to a portable MP3 player. You can use your computer as a stereo to play any songs you like in any order you like. If your computer is part of a network, you can share songs and play them on any computer that’s in the network. Windows Vista comes with two programs for collecting and playing music. One is Windows Media Player, which we’ll discuss in this article. The other is Media Center.

Controlling Sound Volume

Before we get into Windows Media Player, you need to know a few things up front about music and video. In particular, you want to get your sound working and under control, so you can listen to whatever you like, without blasting your eardrums out! Before you get started, make sure that you can control the volume of your speakers. At any given time, you’re likely to have at least three volume controls available to you. Whichever control is set the lowest wins, in the sense that it puts an upper limit on the other volume controls. If you have powered speakers, you need to make sure that the speakers are plugged in and turned on and connected to the Speaker output jack on your computer. If the speakers have a Mute button, make sure that it’s turned off. If the speakers have a volume control button, that needs to be turned up. You can control the volume of sound coming from your computer’s speakers using the Volume Control icon in the Notification area. It looks like a little speaker with sound waves coming out. Pointing to that icon shows the name of your sound card and current volume setting.

If you have multiple sound cards and can’t get any sound, make sure the default sound card is the one that’s connected to the speakers. Click the Start button, type sou, and click Audio Devices and Sound theme. Right-click the icon of the sound card you’re using and choose Set As Default For  ->  All Uses. If both sound cards have speakers attached, you can configure each to act as the default for different types of audio using that same Set As Default For... option.

Starting Windows Media Player

To start Windows Media Player, use whichever method is easiest for you:

- Click the Start button and choose All Programs  ->  Windows Media Player.

- Click the Windows Media Player button in the Quick Launch toolbar.

- Tap the Windows key, type med, and choose Windows Media Player.

- Open any music file for which Windows Media Player is the default program.

The first time you open Windows Media Player, it will take you through a series of steps asking for your preferences. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to answer some questions. You can change your answer at any time. So if you see a window titled “Welcome to Windows Media Player 11!” and don’t know what to do, just click “Accept default Windows Media Player configuration.” You can change settings at any time, so you’re not making any big commitment by accepting the suggested defaults.

Media Player program window

Like most programs, Windows Media Player opens in its own program window and has a taskbar button. The player can have many different appearances. Exactly how it looks at any time is up to you. We’ll look at different ways to display things in a moment. For now, we need to cover the names of things so you know what I’m talking about in the sections to follow.

The features taskbar across the top of the program window represents different areas of Media Player, each of which helps you perform a specific task. Here’s a quick summary of what each tab in the features taskbar offers:

- Now Playing: Shows the movie or video you’re currently watching, or a visualization of dancing colors when you’re playing music.

- Library: Takes you to your collection of songs and other media files.

- Rip: Click this tab when you want to copy songs from a music CD to your Media Player library.

- Burn: This tab lets you create custom CDs from songs in your media library.

- Sync: Use this tab to copy songs and other media files to a portable media player.

- Urge: Some other name might appear here on your screen. It all depends on who you choose as your default online service for purchasing music online.

Media Player menus

Media Player has lots of menus. They’re hidden from view most of the time. But they’re also easy to get to. Each tab in the features taskbar also has its own menu. To see such a menu, first point to a tab in the features taskbar. You’ll see a little down-pointing triangle at the bottom of the tab. Get the tip of the mouse pointer right on that little triangle and click the left mouse button to see the menu for that taskbar button. Optionally, you can right-click an empty spot on the left or right side of the features taskbar to get to the same menu. To make those same options visible in a menu bar, choose Show Classic Menus from the bottom of that main menu.

Play controls

The play controls (also called the playback controls) are at the bottom of Media Player’s program window. They work only when you’re playing a song or video or have selected something to play. They work much like the controls on a VCR, stereo, or DVD player. The exact role of each button varies slightly with the type of content you’re viewing. Here’s what each of the play controls offers:

- Seek bar: When content is playing, a green indicator moves along the seek bar. You can click anywhere along the seek bar to jump forward or backward in the playing item. When you point to the end of the green indicator, a button appears. You can drag that button left or right to move back or forward within the item that’s playing.

- Shuffle: When selected, multiple songs from the current playlist are played in random order. When turned off, songs from the playlist are played in the same order as in the playlist.

- Repeat: When turned on, the same song or playlist plays repeatedly. When turned off, the song or playlist plays only once.

- Stop: Stops whatever is playing and rewinds to the beginning.

- Previous: Skips back to the previous song in the playlist or DVD article. Or, if you point to the button and hold down the left mouse button, plays the current item backwards in fast motion.

- Play/Pause: When content is playing, you can click this button to pause playback. Click again to resume playback.

- Next: Skips to the next song in the playlist or next article on a DVD. Point to this button and hold down the left mouse button to fast forward through the content that’s playing.

- Mute: Click to mute playback sound. Click a second time to hear the sound again.

- Volume: Drag the handle left or right to increase or decrease the volume.

- Full Screen: Switches to full-screen mode. Useful when you want to see a video or DVD played at full-screen size. Once in the full-screen mode, right-click anywhere on the screen and choose Exit Full Screen to return to the program window.

- Skin: Use this button to switch to a different skin. We’ll talk about skins and other items in the features taskbar later in this article. For now, let’s stick with some of the basics of using Media Player’s program window.

Closing/minimizing Windows Media Player

You can close Windows Media Player as you would any other program:

- Click the Close (X) button in the upper-right corner of Media Player’s program window.

- Or, choose File  ->  Exit from Media Player’s menu.

- Or, right-click Media Player’s taskbar button and choose Close.

- Or, if Media Player is in the active window, press Alt+F4.

When you close Media Player, it stops playing whatever it was playing. If you want to continue to listen to music, but want Media Player off the screen, minimize Media Player’s program window. Use any of the following techniques to minimize Media Player’s program window:

- Click the Minimize button in Media Player’s title bar.

- Right-click Media Player’s title bar and choose Minimize.

- Right-click Media Player’s taskbar button and choose Minimize.

Depending on how you have your desktop toolbars configured, you’ll either see a traditional taskbar button for Media Player or you’ll see the mini-mode player. The latter consists of the play controls. You can control playback using controls on the mini-mode player.

When the mini-mode player is visible, you can click the tiny Restore button in its lower-right corner to return the player to its normal size. If you want to use the mini-mode player, you have to turn on its taskbar toolbar. Likewise, if you don’t want to use it, you have to turn off that toolbar. To check, and optionally change, that setting, right-click the clock (or an empty portion of the taskbar) and choose Toolbars.

On the Toolbars submenu that appears, one of the options will be Windows Media Player. If that option is selected (checked), that means the mini-mode is enabled. If that option isn’t checked, mini-mode isn’t enabled. Clicking the option switches from on to off or off to on. Clicking outside the menu closes the menu without changing the current setting. That should be enough to get you started using Media Player. Next we’ll look at various ways in which you can use Media Player to listen to music or watch videos.