fwiw; I have used the IE11 preview in win8.1 preview.... searched add-ons / tracking protection in IE11 and added some , never seems to slow me or affect me in any noticeable ways.

I found my answers. I found WMP on this computer so will just use it. I do prefer Itunes, this will work.

BTW I am enjoying play with W 8 start screen. There won't be many tiles left on it by the time I get rid of the junk. LOL

Great attitude, Emma!

I'm using Adblock Plus for FF 23 and didn't seem to need the easy list filter.
If you want iTunes, you should be able to install it.

Emma, there is a lot of junk on the start screen, isn't there?
I'm not sure if you are interested in being able to quickly access the 'desktop' screen, but I have learned that if you move the desktop tile to the upper left or first position and hold the enter key when the computer boots up, you'll boot directly to the start screen. I am not a huge fan of the start screen, but I've learned to get out of it.

PK, yes there is a lot of junk on it. I google the ones I don't recognize and the ones that make you set up an account and delete them. I won't even set up an MS account the only reason I didn't have to...to use the new PC is because for some reason it didn't connect to the wifi. It told me to set up a local which of course made me use a password. The local couldn't connect either, but something told me to push the button on my router or use the key #. The button on the router did the trick. I also found a way to bypass the password. I was locked out of my PC a few years ago because the password wouldn't work and it was the right password. I love the laptop and it is really, really fast. I thought my desktop was fast but it's nothing compared to this one, especially on start up.

About W 8: One of the reason I bought the laptop/tablet was because I wanted to see what the new OS was like. As I said above, I downloaded the shell because I couldn't even find away to turn it off. LOL After I set up my security and updated I went back to W 8. Now I found a way to flip back and forth between the shell and W 8 start screen and I worked on it for a bit. FF says you can't pin a site on W 8 system yet but I did manage to pin this one but it just shows up as the blank white page with the words "web site" below. I won't use it, I just use the desktop icon to take me to what I need. I am enjoying it but I still like the old fashioned desktop so I can play with the wallpaper.

It really makes me angry to buy a PC then are forced to tie your self to services like MS just to use the thing. Sorry this is so long.

Emma, since you seem to like lean&mean, have you tried "Foobar2000"?

It's not for everyone, basic but functional.

If you use Ninite, they have it: http://ninite.com/

Or straight from the source: http://www.foobar2000.org/

It is basic and no-frills, but I like that.

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It's only for audio, not video. I started using it years ago when the older versions of VLC were "glitching" when playing my music.

Chuggerguy Thanks for the suggestion, I will check them out. I had an X Box tile on the laptop and used it for a bit and the sound was great, better than anything I have heard. I think it said something about a trial version so assumed there must be a charge. I am going to check it out further. Being new to W 8 left me kind of lost. When I turned it on it took the whole screen and with no task bar, I did not know how to make it smaller. Itunes was so easy for me after using WMP.

I do like lists of songs rather than the large icons/tiles displayed. In Itunes I could choose lists.

itunes should run fine on Win8. If it's not working on your machine, try deleting it and reinstalling it.

Foobar is a useful program - it's no match for the versatility and suitability of itunes for less expert users, but it does what it does do well (I'm thinking about use restricted to ripping CDs and playing music files on a PC).

Chuggerguy, I like your taste in music, but I see a big gap in the sequence - there should be some Bob Marley in-between Dylan and Seger. Take a look at the Legend album.

I've never used itunes, or XBox, or... a lot of things.

Foobar2000 is "freeware" btw, not "shareware". :)

Thanks Snidely, I'll do that. :)

Snidely can you give me a download link for W 8 64 bit. I will try it again. I looked and looked and couldn't find one that said W 8 64 and the two I downloaded would not work. I did find a post that said it wouldn't work on 8.

Emma, the apple site iTunes download page should automatically offer the 64bit installer when you visit the page with windows 8 64bit. But its just the installer that's 64bit.. the program installs as a 32bit program.

I installed it on a win8.1 preview computer and it turned up the cpu to full speed and about 25 cpu load... I stopped the Bonjour Dns & Apple mobile services and set them both to manual start. It works ok after that.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Thank you very much for the link, it worked perfectly. Much better. I am listening to love songs of rock and roll.