How do I backup MP3s songs from WMP 11?

[malG]

I'm going to format my drive soon so I need to backup my MP3 songs from WMP 11. I know I can simply backup the My Music folder but I also want to include the song ratings, album covers and playlists. Any suggestions?

Thanks 🙂

 

[hennessy1]

Just back up the whole directory where the music is stored and when you reload it on the drive after I am pretty sure wmp 11 will find the album art and things like that the song rating idk if you can back up and as for the playlists you can back those up as well

 

[Brazen]

Yeah the playlists and album are should be in the same directory as your music, so just copy that whole directory and you'll have all that. I'm not sure about ratings, but I think they get embedded into the mp3.

 

[malG]

Hmmm...are you sure I only need to backup the My Music directory (location of my MP3s)?

 

[Boobs McGee]

Backup these files if you want to keep your WMP database intact.

C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Media Player

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Media Player -> Tools -> Options -> Library Tab -> Check 'Maintain my star ratings as global ratings in files' to preserve your ratings.

Windows Media Player doesn't embed Album Art into the file; it saves it as a Hidden System file in the folder (where the audio file is stored), named something like AlbumArtLargexxxxxxxx and AlbumArtSmallxxxxxxx. To embed Album Art into a file, you will have to use some other tagging program like MediaMonkey (I think iTunes does this too?).