Forgive me if this a old subject. I am new to this music download world. I was recently recommended Limewire and down loaded a lot of songs. I saved them in the Limewire library, then sent them to My Music on Windows. I then transferred them to Windows Media and added them to the Library therein. Quite happily listening to the first batch, I thought I'd down load another lot of music, so cleared the Limewire library (saved files) in preparation to making a new library. I then found that the songs that I had saved in my Windows Media library would not play. I must admit to being a bit of a dinosaur where computers are concerned. Perhaps you would takle pity on an old man and point out where I have gone wrong?

Did you import the actual songs to WMP just import a playlist. A playlist is simply a reference to the location of the files. It is not the actual songs themselves. So if you move or delete the songs from the location the playlist was created then the playlist won't play. That's why I use iTunes b/c it physically imports the music to its own music library.

I have a suspicion you deleted your song files. I'm not a knowledge on WMP. It sounds like you were sharing your music library & deleted it thru the LW library.

aha. that is what I seem to have done. can I convert the songs I download into WMP format (if that doesn't sound too silly.) I noticed when I ripped some CD's I had and added them to the Windows Media library they had thw suffix .wmp after the file name and they were not affected.

thanks for your patience.

If you want to. Just make sure you add the actual songs from LW into the WMP library before deleting them.

well
I will give that a go. I assume there is a button which points me in the general direction of converting into wmp ?

I don't use WMP & the version I just tried to open crashed the system so I'm just about the downld one of the newer versions. There will be options there somewhere in preferences/settings or something probably.

You, sir, are an officer and a gentleman. May you be rewarded in cyber heaven


so I expect i'll be back on tomorrow whining !!


Thanks anyway, matey:

I discovered thru experimentation & advice from another forum member that wmp only uses references to song files - so when you add a song it acts like a playlist ... it only references it & doesn't actually import it into its own music library. So move the location or delete the original file & bang ... wmp can't play it. That's why I suggested iTunes b/c it can import files into its own music library folder thus allowing you to delete the original downlded copy or back it up onto disk. See iTunes shared library & How to Downld whole albums & Albumwrap

A late note in a pm from the above member: "Just as thought to add to posts make sure they block it from connecting to the internet, otherwise it sends data out on what it is being used for and what it's playing another M$ inconveince"

And also I think this brings in the idea to consider this: What you should know about WMA Files