Windows Media Player is Microsoft's free program that plays most of your digital media, including music, videos, CDs, and DVDs. It also acts like a digital jukebox that helps you find and organize digital media files. XP's Media Player is more versatile than the anemic attempts in early Windows versions; it lets you listen to internet radio stations, rip tracks from audio CDs to your hard drive, burn music CDs, download songs to your portable music player, shop at online stores, and more.
Tips
Many Windows XP installations include Media Player 8 or 9. This chapter covers Media Player 10, which Microsoft released in September 2004. You can download the latest version free via Windows Update or at www.microsoft.com/windowsmedia. (Media Player 10 isn't part of Service Pack 2.)
To use Media Player in all its capacities, you should have a 1.5 GHz processor or faster and at least 512 MB RAM.