Windows Vista™ Inside Out

Working with Playlists

A playlist is a customized list of digital media files that Windows Media Player can play back as a unit, in either linear or random order. If you want to combine tracks from multiple albums or rearrange the order of tracks on a CD, you use a playlist. Windows Media Player 11 supports three distinct uses for playlists: Now Playing lists are for playback, Burn lists are for creating custom CDs, and Sync lists are for synchronizing files with a portable device.

You can build a playlist on the fly for a specific purpose—to play some files or burn a CD, for example. After the task is done, you can clear the list or save it for reuse. Saved lists are stored by default in the Playlists folder. You can also create and save Auto ...