Windows 8.1: The Missing Manual

Burning Your Own CDs

The beauty of a CD burner is that it frees you from the stifling restrictions put on your musical tastes by the record companies. You can create your own “best of” CDs that play in any CD player—and that contain only your favorite songs in your favorite order. The procedure goes like this:

1. Click the Burn tab. Insert a blank CD.

   If you’ve inserted a rewriteable disc like a CD-RW, and you’ve burned it before, right-click its icon in the navigation tree. Then, from the shortcut menu, choose “Erase disc” before you proceed.

   GEM IN THE ROUGH: Auto Playlists

   Auto playlists constantly rebuild themselves according to criteria you specify. You might tell one playlist to assemble 45 minutes’ worth of songs you’ve rated higher than four stars but rarely listen to, and another to list your most-often-played songs from the ’80s.

   To make an auto playlist, choose “Create playlist”→“Create auto playlist” (on the toolbar). The dialog box shown here appears. The controls are designed to set up a search of your music database. Click “Click here to add criteria,” click the first criterion (like Artist), and then click each underlined phrase (“is”/“is not”) to build a sentence. For example, “Artist” “Is” “Beatles.”

   

   The last set of controls in this dialog box let you limit the playlist’s total size, playback time, or song quantity.

   When you click OK, your auto playlist is ready to show off; ...