Windows Media Player 9 consists of seven features in a single application: a CD player, an audio and video player, a media jukebox, a media guide, an Internet radio tuner, a portable device that you can transfer music files to, and an audio CD burner. These software programs are combined into one easy-to-use application designed to make playing digital media a mainstream experience. An audio CD creator and a unified player are also included with the program.

This program also allows you to play streaming and downloadable digital audio, video, and other Internet content; play back CD and digital recordings; use the jukebox functionality to play or copy an entire CD to your PC in just a few minutes with one click; and much more.

Windows Media Player 9 incorporated new built-in support for custom CD creation. It also included new skins, new visualizations, and a new Digital DJ skin that allows Media Player to create playlists. Version9 adds Windows Media Audio 8 (WMA8) encoding, Windows Media Audio and Video 8 decoding, new smart transcode support for high-quality transfer to portable devices, and other enhancements and bug fixes.