I have a few hundred audio files on a hard drive that I am now realizing are in the .m4a format. I have found various "convert to" or "play using this player" type articles online but they are not really conducive to what I need. I'm wondering if there is a basic codec package I can download and install that will let me play these in Windows Media Player 11 like I do my other .mp3 files. Thanks!
Scroll down to 'Apple ALAC goes WMP' I used this to get .aac files working with WMP. http://www.dsp-worx.de/
And this has exactly what to do with High Resolution audio please? Should be in the general Audio board.
I don't use WMP 11 but I really doubt that M$ would pay Apple royalties. So that means NO to your question. You will need to either convert or use a player that can play apple files. WMP is pretty bottom of the barrel. I do admit to using it to play a tune from file explorer. WMP loads faster than the better apps. I do not use foobar2000 but it might play Apple formats. You might want to check out my article I posted yesterday in this forum on conversions. I would convert to WMAs of the same BR unless you will be needing to play them on an Apple player. In that case convert to mp3 VBR. If you just do a straight conversion to a regular mp3 you will lose quality. If they are 128s that loss will be noticable.