Starting the Windows Media Player (WMP) from a command prompt

If you wish to start the Windows Media Player (WMP) application from a command-line interface (CLI), such as a command prompt window, you can do so by entering the command "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" at a command prompt window (be sure to enclose the command within double quotes since there are spaces in the directory path). You might wish to do so if you are logged into one user account, but wish to open a movie or music file that is not accesible from the currently logged in user account. If you wished to run the program from an administrator account, you can open a command prompt window as an administrator or you can open a unprivileged command prompt window from the currently logged in account and then use the runas /user command e.g., runas /user:username "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" where username is the account name for the account from which you wish to run the program. E.g., runas /user:jane "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" to run the Windows Media Player with Jane's account privileges. If you need to run the command from a Windows domain account, you can use runas /user:domainname\username "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" where domainname is the name of the domain and username is the name of the domain user account. Once the Windows Media Player app is open, you can then hit the Ctrl-O keys (the Ctrl and the letter "O" key) simultaneously to open a window where you can then browse for audiovisual files in directories to which the other user account has access.

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Ripping a CD with Microsoft Windows Media Player 12

To rip a CD to the music libary stored on your system, i.e., to copy the music from the CD to the hard drive on a Windows sytem, using Windows Media Player 12, take the following steps:

1. Insert the CD in the CD/DVD drive in the system.
2. Start the Windows Media Player application.
3. On the left pane of the Windows Media Player window, navigate to the location of the CD/DVD drive, which should be displaying the album as shown below where the album is identified as "unknown album"

   

4. Right-click on the CD in the left pane of the window and choose "Rip CD to library. As the CD is "ripped", you should see the status displayed under "Rip status" near the top of the window; status information is also displayed in the lower, right-hand side of the window.

   

   The status under "Rip status" should change to "Ripped to library" at the completion of the rip process.

On a Microsoft Windows 7 system, you should then see the name of the album in your music folder under Libraries\Music or C:\Users\Username\Music\, where Username is the name for the account under which you logged into the system, if you look for it using the Windows Explorer. If the album/artist could not be identified by Windows Media Player, you may see an "Unknown artist" folder with an "Unknown album" folder within it. From the Windows Explorer, you can right-click on the folder names and change them, if you wish.

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