CD Player is a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

that plays audio CDs using the

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...

. It was included in

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

, Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0 and

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

(as Deluxe CD Player). It was removed from

Windows ME Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...

and beyond in favor of "CD/DVD playback functionality" in

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP, officially referred to as Windows Media Player Legacy to retronym, distinguish it from Windows Media Player (2022), the new Windows Media Player introduced with Windows 11) is the first media player (application soft ...

Features

When the CD Player is launched, it searches the

optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive (ODD) is a disc drive that uses laser light or electromagnetic waves within or near the visible light spectrum as part of the process of reading or writing data to or from optical discs. Some drives can on ...

for CD audio tracks, looks up disc

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

with an Internet service and plays the CD. If no CD is inserted, one of the following

error message An error message is the information displayed when an unforeseen problem occurs, usually on a computer or other device. Modern operating systems with graphical user interfaces, often display error messages using dialog boxes. Error messages are us ...

s is returned by the program: Data or no disc loaded. or Please insert an audio compact disc. CD Player's time display can be toggled between Track Time Elapsed, Track Time Remaining, and Disc Time Remaining. Tracks can be played in sequence or in random order. CD recognition, track and artist data can be manually entered and are re-displayed on next load. The database information is stored in a cdplayer.ini file which is limited to 64 kilobytes.

Deluxe CD Player

A modified version of CD Player with a different skin called ''Deluxe CD Player'' was also included in Microsoft Plus! for Windows 98,

until "beta 3" stage and

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

( Whistler) until beta 2 build 2446. As a feature upgrade to the standard CD Player, Deluxe CD Player was able to retrieve album metadata from the now defunct Tunes.com and

Music Boulevard Music Boulevard, or musicblvd.com, was a retail music information and sales website founded in 1995 by Telebase Systems. In 1997 the Music Boulevard website, operated by N2K, became among the first websites to offer piracy-protected music single ...

. The database information is stored in a DeluxeCD.mdb file, a

Microsoft Access Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational database, relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsof ...

file format.

References

External links

CD-ROM Extras for Microsoft Windows 95 Upgrade
(Internet Archive copy)
GUIdebook - Screenshots of CD Player
Discontinued Windows components Microsoft Windows multimedia technology Tag editors Windows media players 1998 software {{Windows-stub