How to Create a Personal Playlist for Use in Windows Media Player

This article describes how to create a personal playlist to play multiple files sequentially in Windows Media Player.

To create a playlist for use in Windows Media Player, use either of the following methods:

Method 1

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Notepad.
2. Create a text file that includes the full path to the files you want to include.
3. On the File menu, click Save. Save the file with one of the following extensions, based on the types of files included.
   • For files of type .wav, .mp3, .mpg, or .mpeg, use the extension .m3u.
   • For files of type .asf, use the extension .asx.

For example, to sequentially play the Chord.wav, Ding.wav, and Chimes.wav files, include the following lines: Save this file as Filename.m3u, where Filename is the name you want to use for the file. When you double-click this file or open it in Windows Media Player, it plays the files in order from the top of the file to the bottom.

This information also applies to most third-party media player utilities, such as Winamp. For example, if Winamp is the default player for .mp3 files, Winamp starts when you double-click the file.

Method 2

You can use the dir command to port the contents of a folder to a file that can be used as a playlist. To do so:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, and then click MS-DOS Prompt.
2. Change directories to the folder that contains the media files for which you want to create a playlist.
3. Type dir /b>playlist.m3u, and then press ENTER.
   
   Or, to write the file names to the playlist in alphabetical order, type dir /b/on>playlist.m3u

This creates a file named Playlist.m3u that contains the contents of the folder and plays them sequentially. You can also use other command-line switches with the dir command to modify the order in which the files are listed in the playlist. Type dir /? at a command prompt for information about the command-line switches for the dir command.