Microsoft Windows Media Player 11 is the latest version of
Microsoft’s media management software. One of its core features is
the ability to rip CDs (copy music) and convert them into music files
which you can later put on your digital audio player. Following the
steps below will help you to get music from your CDs to your computer’s
hard drive.

Here’s How:
1.   Insert the music CD into your computer’s CD drive. If a window
titled “Audio CD” pops up, select “Take No Action” and click
Ok.

2.   Start Windows Media Player from the Start Menu.

3.   With the “Now Playing” tabbed menu on the screen, select
“Rip”. You’ll notice a list of your CD tracks appear, with the
title, length, artist and other information either filled in or showing
as unknown. If you have an Internet connection, click “Find Album
Info” to have it downloaded and filled in automatically.
Alternatively, you can click on items like artist once and manually
type in the information.

4.   Select Tools from under the top menu and choose Options. Choose
the Rip Music tab. Check to see that the “Rip Music to this
location” option is to your liking. If not, click Change. Under File
Name, you can also choose what options (i.e. artist, song title) to
include in the name.

5.   Under Rip settings, select the Format you wish to save your music
to. The Three Windows Media Audio formats can provide slightly better
audio results then MP3, especially at lower bit rates (known as audio
quality in Windows Media Player – see next step), but are not as
widely supported on digital audio players as MP3s.

6.   Audio quality selection is next. The slider, by moving it to the
right, will increase the bit rate by which the music is recorded to.
The higher the bit rate (i.e. displayed in the box as 192 Kbps), the
better sounding quality the music will be. It also will increase the
size of the individual music files, which may ultimately limit how many
you can store on a portable device.

7.   After confirming your selections, click Ok to return to the Rip CD
screen.

8.   Looking at the screen, you will see checkmarks next to each of the
tracks to be copied. If you wish to not copy some of them, uncheck
those marks.

9.   Click Rip Music. A progress bar will appear next to each song
title as it is copied onto your hard drive. You can stop the rip at
anytime by clicking Stop Rip.

10.   When all of the songs have been ripped, you can eject the CD and
put it away.

11.   Congratulations – you’ve ripped a CD using Windows Media
Player!