How to transfer your CD on to your computer in Windows Vista

It's all very well talking about put music collections on computers and ripping CDs and streaming them across the Internet, but unless you know how to do it, you're quite stuck. It can often feel like lessons were given out in the last five years, detailing how to do these things, and now they've cancelled the course. Fear not, though. We're hear to help you play catch up and all you need is Windows Media Player, which handily comes with Windows Vista.

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Fix the format

Before you put the CD in the drive, make sure Media Player will use the correct format. Click on the arrow below the Burn toolbar button, then on Format; you'll see that Media Player wants to use Windows Media Audio. Click on MP3 to change the file format.

If you want to play your music on anything else other than your computer, make sure you rip to MP3 format.

Change the rate

Music quality is measured in "bit rates", which specify how much data the file should use for each second of music. The bigger the number the bigger the file and the better the sound quality. With MP3s Media Player defaults to a bit rate of 128Kbps, which delivers small files but - to our ears - doesn't sound that great. We'd recommend 192Kbps for most systems, although if you're obsessive about sound quality you can select bit rates as high as 320Kbps. It's worth experimenting with different bit rates to find the best compromise between file sizes and sound quality.

Don't Panic! If this is all too much for you, use 192Kbps

Get ready

Now, you can put the disc into the drive. Windows Vista may ask what program you want to use for CDs (as shown here); if it does, select Rip Audio CD using Windows Media Player.

Be smart. Be safe - As when doing anything for the first time, make sure the 'Always Do This' box is unchecked, just in case.

Pointless protection

Do you want to add copy protection to your songs so that you might not be able to transfer them to a portable player or your next PC? We didn't think so. Click on No and then tick the "I promise not to be bad" box.

I fought the law - Whilst the legality of ripping CDs is still in dispute, it's a fair bet to assume you won't get in trouble, so long as you don't upload them to the Internet and start selling them for money or something equally silly.

Here we go

Media Player will connect to the internet, download the track listings and album artwork, and begin ripping your CD to disc. The time it takes will depend on the speed of your CD or DVD drive, but you can expect to rip an entire album in a couple of minutes.

Nobody Knows? There will be a few occasions when Media Player fails to recognize an album and consequently can't download the artwork and track listings. It these situations, unfortunately you have to enter the information yourself.

Colour codes

Media Player displays a progress bar as each track is ripped. Green is good. If there's a problem with the disc - for example, because it's scratched - then you'll see an orange or red bar instead. If you do it's often worth ejecting the CD, giving it a wipe and trying again.

Fix the list

Your ripped CD is automatically added to your library, but the downloaded track information isn't always perfect: we've ripped the UK version of Pink's album, which has a different track listing to the US version. That means we have to manually edit the artist information for the final track, which Media Player didn't recognise. To do that, find the track in your library, select the song and then click on the artist name for that song. You can now type the correct information.

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