CD Player is a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

that plays

audio CDs The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October ...

using the

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

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 i ...

. It was included in

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. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 3.51 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the third version of Windows NT and was released on May 30, 1995, eight months following the release of Windows NT ...

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

and

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

(as Deluxe CD Player). The program was also made available for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

. It was removed from later versions of Windows starting with

Windows ME Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

, being replaced by

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as on ...

Features

When the CD Player is launched, it searches the

optical disc drive In computing, an optical disc drive 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 only r ...

for CD audio tracks, looks up disc

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

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

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

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 upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

( 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 singles ...

. 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 Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools (not to be confused with the old Microsoft Access w ...

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