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Chapter 8: Creating Your Media Library with Windows Media Player
Playing Your Media
Once you’ve configured Windows Media Player 11, you can use it to play any audio
or video file on your computer. If Windows Media Player is the default player for this
type of file, you can launch the player and play the file simply by double-clicking it.
With other types of supported files, you can right-click the file, select Open With,
and then choose Windows Media Player as the program you want to use to open the
file. While you can open and play media files using either of these techniques, doing
so isn’t the best or most constructive use of Windows Media Player. Instead, follow
the techniques outlined in the sections that follow to get the most out of the player
features built into Windows Media Player.
Using Now Playing with Media Added to Your Library
With media added to your library, you can select media to play in Now Playing sim-
ply by double-clicking an audio track, picture file, or video file. The way Now Play-
ing works depends on the type of media:
• With an audio track, the related album or audio book starts playing, beginning
with the audio track you selected and continuing according to the order of the
tracks, or autoshuffling if you’ve turned on the autoshuffle feature.
• With a picture file, the related picture folder starts playing, beginning with the
picture you selected and continuing with a slide show according to the order of
the pictures, or autoshuffling if you’ve turned on the autoshuffle feature.
• With video or recorded TV files, the related video or TV folder starts playing,
beginning with the video or show you selected and continuing with a slide show
according to the order of the files, or autoshuffling if you’ve turned on the
autoshuffle feature.
Figure 8-10. Working with recorded TV in Windows Media Player