Struggling with Windows Media Player

Chomeur

I'm having some trouble in understanding Windows Media Player (WMP). I store music files in My Documents/My Music with a folder for each album. From those files I understand that I can select files to go into my library in WMP. I can have this done automatically by selecting folders for WMP to monitor. From my library I can select files to go into a playlist. That seems simple enough but WMP doesn't always seem to work on this basis.

I downloaded the Glastonbury album which is mentioned on this site onto my desktop. I unzipped it, and copied the folder with all the music files into My Documents/My Music. I looedk under library in WMP and it seemed not to be listed. So I went to Library/Add to Library where I checked that My Documents/Music is selected. I clicked OK. WMP then deleted my existing playlist and created two new playlists ("New Playlist" and "Untitled Playlist"). This is really annoying because I have some songs on my computer that I don't want to be in my playlist and now everything is in the two new ones. Furthermore, the songs from the Glastonbury album aren't in the new playlists!

I didn't ask WMP to do anything to my playlist, only to my library. Yet it deleted my playlist. Is there any way to get my playlist back?

Also, if I try to delete one of the playlists that WMP has created, I get a message asking me if I want to delete the "items" from just my library or both the library and my computer. This is really confusing. I want to delete the playlist from my computer. The message makes it sound as if the music files in the playlist are going to be deleted, rather than the playlist itself. What is actually going to happen?

I guess I must have some misunderstanding of the whole concept behind WMP. Either that or it's rubbish.

weegie.geek

Chomeur wrote: »

Either that or it's rubbish.

Winamp is much nicer than WMP for music stuff.

Chomeur

Thanks, I'm trying it out now. It seems to give a more sensible message when I delete a playlist at the least.

Dreamnine

Either WinAmp or Media Monkey is better.

Chomeur

It's good that WinAmp can play both mpeg files and Windows Media Files. And it seems to have a sensible approach to dealing with files, e.g. you can just play a file direct from your file system without having to look for it in the library. I have ITunes on my computer as well but that doesn't seem to play Windows Media Files and it seems to perennially need to download updates. So thanks for the recommendations.

Chomeur

Anyone know how to turn off the little popup that appears briefly at the bottom right of the screen as each new song starts? I don't mind it except for the fact that it prevents me from accessing things underneath it, like the horizontal scrollbar in Excel. I've looked under Options/Preferences but can't find how to do this.

nicks

Does Winamp support MP3 players other than Ipods?

***OK - all sorted now***