Tip: Find Hidden Info in the Windows Media Player Controls

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The playback controls at the bottom of the Windows Media Player window illustrate that universal advice for Windows enthusiasts: when in doubt, click and right-click.If you follow that advice, you’ll be amply rewarded.

Clicking the icon in the lower left corner while a music track is playing, for instance, will cycle through a tiny thumbnail of the album cover art, an icon that indicates whether the track is playing from a local file or streaming from a network server, and a mini frequency spectrum.

If you hover the mouse pointer over this region, you’ll see the bit rate of the current track.

You can click the time indicator to cycle through different views of elapsed and remaining time.

Right-clicking the Play/Pause button lets you choose slow, normal, and fast playback modes.

And if you’re ripping a CD, a progress indicator to the right of the playback controls will tell you how many tracks remain to be ripped; you can click the message to jump directly to the track list from the CD.

From the Microsoft Press book Windows 7 Inside Out by Ed Bott, Carl Siechert, and Craig Stinson.

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