I have Windows Media Player 10.

An update to Windows Media Player 11 is offered frequently, but is a 26.x MB download, which on my dial-up connection means my computer is unusable for about 12 hours. Maybe later.

Clicking HELP in Windows Media Player, on the Index tab, I find an introduction to Windows Media Player.

Clicking "Perform Common Tasks" or something like that, takes me to "creating playlists." The apparently critical point there is that only items in your "Library" can be added to a playlist. Only items on your computer, on a network drive, or on the internet can be added to your library.

A subsequent entry, a couple of clicks later to something about adding items to your library, indicates that you can add items from CDs to your library by copying them from the CD onto your machine, and after they are copied they can be added to your library. After they are in your library, they can be entered into a playlist.

There is no indication that I found in my extensive research, encompassing at least 4.3 minutes, that indicates that tracks from a CD can be entered into a playlist without first copying them to a local drive, and adding them as "library" entries, before attempting to enter them into a playlist.

Entries/additions to a "playlist," as defined in the articles found, can be made only from items in the machine's library, and the library can contain only things on your machine, on a network to which you are connected, or at known links on the internet.

For playing a single CD, you may or may not be able to select the order in which tracks will play. That would require additional exhaustive research, but it appears that it comes under a different "task" than creating a playlist.

John