HOW TO RIP CDS IN WINDOWS 10

In a process known as ripping, Windows Media Player in Windows 10 can copy your CDs to your PC as MP3 files, the industry standard for digital music. But until you tell the player that you want MP3 files, it creates WMA files — a format that won’t play on iPads, most smartphones, nor many other music players.

To make Windows Media Player create songs with the more versatile MP3 format instead of WMA, click the Organize button in the top-left corner, choose Options, and click the Rip Music tab. Choose MP3 instead of WMA from the Format drop-down menu and nudge the audio quality over a tad from 128 to 256 or even 320 for better sound.

To copy CDs to your PC’s hard drive, follow these instructions:

Open Windows Media Player, insert a music CD, and click the Rip CD button.

You may need to push a button on the front or side of your computer’s disc drive to make the tray eject.

Windows Media Player connects to the Internet; identifies your CD; and fills in the album’s name, artist, and song titles. Then the program begins copying the CD’s songs to your PC and listing their titles in the Windows Media Player Library. You’re through.

If Windows Media Player can’t find the songs’ titles automatically, however, move ahead to Step 2.


Right-click the first track and choose Find Album Info, if necessary.

If Windows Media Player comes up empty-handed, right-click the first track and choose Find Album Info.

If you’re connected to the Internet, type the album’s name into the Search box and then click Search. If the Search box finds your album, click its name, choose Next, and click Finish.

If you’re not connected to the Internet, or if the Search box comes up empty, right-click the first song, click Edit, and manually fill in the song title. Repeat for the other titles, as well as the album, artist, genre, and year tags.

Here are some tips for ripping CDs to your computer:


Normally Windows Media Player copies every song on the CD. To leave Tiny Tim off your ukulele music compilation, however, remove the check mark from Tiny Tim’s name. If Windows Media Player has already copied the song to your PC, feel free to delete it from within Windows Media Player. Click the Library button, right-click the song sung by the offending yodeler, and choose Delete.


Windows Media Player automatically places your ripped CDs into your Music folder. You can also find your newly ripped music there as well as in the Windows Media Player Library.


Before you use iTunes in Windows 10 for the first time, you run through the iTunes Setup Assistant program. Here’s how to minimize your ongoing headaches:

1If you quit immediately after iTunes is installed or if iTunes was preinstalled on your PC, tap the iTunes tile on the Start menu's All Apps list or double-click the iTunes icon on the desktop to run iTunes for the first time.

If you didn’t quit iTunes, you automatically come to this step after iTunes has been successfully installed.

2Tap or click through another license agreement, which is considerably longer than the U.S. Constitution. Choose I Agree, Yer Honor (or words to that effect).

While you’re waiting, head over to YouTube and look up the South Park episode where Butters reads the iTunes agreement, or development of the HUMANCENTiPAD. You don’t want to mess with these people.

The iTunes Tutorials home page appears.

3When the tutorials are done, close the Tutorials home page and click Agree (again). If you have music on your computer that you want iTunes to see, click or tap Scan for Media.

Depending on how much music you have stored in your Music library, the scan can take minutes or hours.

The initial iTunes Music page appears, as shown here.

If you’re curious about what iTunes actually does with your music, don’t be overly concerned. Unlike earlier versions, the latest version of iTunes doesn’t move any files. Instead, it builds a database that points to your music and stores it in the new MusiciTunes folder. Still worried? Crank up File Explorer and go look. And breathe a sigh of relief.

You may or may not want to use iTunes to import (rip) music CDs—ripping is much less common now than it once was. But even if you don’t want to use iTunes to rip CDs, it’s a good idea to make one simple change, right now.

4Way up in the upper-left corner, click the small down arrow next to the icon that looks like an open book. Choose Preferences. Tap or click the Import Settings icon near When You Insert a CD.

The Import Settings dialog box appears, where you can make sure iTunes rips to MP3 format.


5Choose MP3 Encoder in the Import Using drop-down list.

That ensures the ripped music files appear as MP3 files. You may prefer AAC format (or WMA format, for that matter), but there’s nothing as clean — or as ubiquitous — as MP3. Keep in mind that AAC uses less space for high quality sound, and that iTunes doesn’t speak the Microsoft-proprietary WMA format.

6Unless you rip many CDs every day, select the Use Error Correction When Reading Audio CDs check box.

Although using error correction may make the ripping process run a little slower — okay, much slower — it’ll guarantee that you get the best recordings possible from those old, dirty scratched CDs. You know you have them.

7Tap or click OK, and then tap or click OK again.

You end up back in iTunes.

If you ever discover that iTunes failed to pick up a new song — one that you ripped from a CD, downloaded from the Internet, or bought from an online service — simply locate the song file or album folder in File Explorer and drag it into iTunes.