ActiveWin: Windows Media Player 9: How To Make A New Playlist?

Although I am sure that most people that read our site and use Microsoft products, especially Windows Media Player know this, I am sure there are people that are either new to using computers or new to Windows Media Player out there that aren't 100% sure how to make playlists. I have to be the first to admit that I was one of those people that wasn't sure how to make playlists and use to get frustrated at listening to the same song over and over again.

So how do you make a playlist? Well it isn't that difficult, but if you don't know where to look then it can be difficult.

First thing you have to do is choose what sort of playlist that you want and what you want in the playlist. For this example I am going to use some Dennis Leary comedy that I have on my drive. I am a big fan of his and have quite a bit of his sound clips downloaded.

Once you open up Windows Media Player you choose File -> New Playlist or CTRL+N. Once you have that selected you have a new window open up which will have on the left hand side a list of playlists already created. If this is the first time you have made a playlist then it will just have Sample Playlist listed there. On the right hand side is the Playlist Name which should have New Playlist highlighted. In this case for the example I am going to choose the name Dennis Leary, because that is what is going into it. You can choose any name for this, it is really down to what you are putting into the playlist.

After putting in Dennis Leary as the name of the playlist I now have to add the songs. If you click OK at the bottom of the window we just had open it will take you back to the standard Windows Media Player window. You then search your drive to where the music is stored and select the songs that you want. When you find a song that you want to add then you right click the song and select Add to Playlist. After adding it to the playlist, Windows Media Player will open up again with a small window that has Add to Playlist on the top of it and will show you a list of playlists already created. All you do then is choose what playlist you want it added to.

If you already have a playlist created but you want to edit it after creation you can do so by opening up Windows Media Player and choose File -> Edit Playlist or CTRL+D. This will open the same window that you had when you originally created the playlist and you can remove songs by clicking the X at the bottom of the window or move songs up and down by using the arrow keys on the window.

That is basically all there is to it. You can do playlists for all the songs you have and download. After you have created all these playlists though you then have to access them. Once again that is quite easy. In the top right corner there is a drop down menu that has all the playlists that have been created. If you want to choose a specific playlist to play then you just click the down arrow on the playlist and choose the one that you want.

Another good feature that you can do is if you find another song that you want added to the playlist you are currently playing is that you can right click the song and then choose the Queue-it-up and it will add it to the current playlist.

I hope that some people that have read this have found this useful. If you wish to comment on this editorial then please click on the link at the bottom of this page. All comments good or bad are welcome.

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