How to or Burn a CD Using Windows Media Player

This article provides a step-by-step guide on using Windows Media Player to copy files from a CD to your computer or burn files onto a CD. To complete these tasks, your computer must have Windows Media Player installed and a DVD drive.

Insert the CD into your computer's DVD drive. Place the CD you wish to copy files from into the DVD drive with the label facing upward.

• If your computer's drive is not labeled 'DVD,' it is not the correct drive and cannot be used for copying or burning CDs.
• If Windows Media Player opens automatically when the CD is inserted, you can skip the next two steps.
• If a window or another program opens automatically, close it before proceeding.

Open Windows Media Player. Type windows media player and click on the orange, blue, and white Windows Media Player icon at the top of the Start menu.

• If you don’t see Windows Media Player at the top of the Start menu, it means the program is not installed on your computer. Windows Media Player is not pre-installed on some versions of Windows 10, but upgrading to Windows 10 will add it to your system.

Select the CD. Click on the CD name on the left side of the window.

Change the copy destination folder if needed. If you want to modify the folder where the copied data from the CD will be saved, follow these steps:

• Click on Rip settings at the top of the window.
• Select More options... from the dropdown menu.
• Click on Change... at the top-right corner of the window.
• Choose a new folder and click OK at the bottom of the window.
• Click OK again to confirm.

Click on Rip CD at the top of the window. This action will prompt Windows Media Player to start copying the CD files to your computer.

• The copying process may take about a minute (or longer) per standard song.
• To stop the copying process at any time, click on Stop rip at the top of the window.

Click on OK when prompted. This confirms that the files have been successfully copied from the CD to your computer.

• You can view the CD files by opening the destination folder, double-clicking on the artist’s name (or Unknown artist), and then double-clicking on the album folder.

Insert a blank CD into your computer's DVD drive. You must use a new CD-R or CD-RW disc (or, if you want to use the CD for storage, use a new DVD).

• If your computer's drive is not labeled "DVD," it is not the correct drive and cannot be used for copying or burning CDs.
• If Windows Media Player opens automatically when the CD is inserted, you can skip the next two steps.
• If a window or another program opens automatically, close it before proceeding.

Open Windows Media Player. Type windows media player and click on the orange, blue, and white Windows Media Player icon at the top of the Start menu.

• If you don’t see Windows Media Player at the top of the Start menu, it means the program is not installed on your computer. Windows Media Player is not pre-installed on some versions of Windows 10, but upgrading to Windows 10 will add it to your system.

Select the CD format. While you typically use Windows Media Player to create music CDs playable in cars or CD players, you can also use it to create CDs for storage purposes:

• Click on "Burn options" with the list icon at the top of the "Burn" section.
• Choose Audio CD to create a music CD or Data CD or DVD to create a storage CD.

Add songs to the CD. You can include up to 80 minutes of music on a standard audio CD; simply click and drag your favorite tracks from the main window into the "Burn" section.

• If you're creating a data CD, you can also add videos and photos to the disc.

Arrange the songs in your preferred order. Click and drag the songs up or down to set the playback sequence as you like.

• Skip this step if you're creating a data CD.

Click on Start burn at the top of the "Burn" section. This will prompt Windows Media Player to begin writing the selected songs (or files) to the CD. Once completed, the computer will automatically eject the disc.

• The burning process may take a few minutes, depending on the chosen CD format and the number of tracks being burned.

• When selecting a new folder to save copied CD data, you can choose a basic folder (such as Desktop) and then click Make New Folder on the left side of the window to create and select a new folder for saving the data.

• Selling copies of the original CD violates copyright laws and is illegal in many regions.