The Napster Preferences let you configure the program to suit you. To get to the Preferences, go to the File menu and choose Preferences. Below are explanations of each tab in the Preferences window.

Personal Information Preferences

On the Personal tab, you can update your account information, including your email address and your password, while you're online. However, you can't change your user name here. If you want to change your user name, you must uninstall Napster from your computer, then install it again, registering a new user name. (You'll get the best results by restarting your computer between uninstalling and re-installing Napster.)

These are the other options on the Personal tab:

Connection Type
Select the type of connection you use to connect to the Internet. If you don't know what kind of connection you're using, choose "I don't know!"

Media Player
Choose the program you'll use to play your music files. Selecting "Napster Internal Player" means that while Napster is open, you'll use the Napster Player. If you select "Default Media Player," then the default player on your computer will play your music files. If it's not already open, your default media player will launch when you play a music file from within Napster.

Chat Preferences

On this tab, you can set the following preferences:

Automatically join my previous chat rooms when signing on to Napster
With this box checked, every time you connect to Napster, you'll automatically join the channels that were open when you last logged off. The default for this option is off.

Do not display offensive words in private messages or public chat rooms
With this box checked, Napster will replace certain swear words in your chat windows and your Instant Messages with non-letter characters such as %@%!. The default for the swear filter is off.

Display my incoming private messages in separate windows
With this box checked, each Instant Message you receive will appear in a separate window. The default for this option is on.

With this option off, the Instant Messages you receive will appear in the private channel of the chat area. The private channel is the default channel you see when you first enter the chat area, showing the Napster Message of the Day.

Display notification when a user enters or exits a chat room
With this box checked, you'll receive a message in your chat window each time a user joins or leaves that room. The default for this option is on.

Schemes Preferences

You can customize the appearance of your Napster window here. Choose one of the Napster-provided color schemes, or create a custom color scheme by selecting "Custom Color Scheme," selecting elements in the Item List, and using the "Item Color" and "Background Color" buttons. The default is "Color Scheme #1 (White Background)."

Sharing Preferences

Shared folders

To make MP3 and WMA files available to the Napster Community, use this tab to designate your shared folder(s). Remember, the only files on your computer that Napster users can access are the MP3 and WMA files in folders you've chosen to share.

If you had Napster scan your files when you first launched the program, you'll share every folder where Napster found MP3 or WMA files. To find shared folders in the list on the Sharing tab, look for boxes with a black or gray check mark (shared folders) and boxes with a red outline (folders containing shared folders). To change a shared folder selection, just click the box next to that directory.

All MP3 and WMA files in the folders you choose to share will appear in your Napster My Files area and will be available for sharing with the Napster Community.

Advanced transfer options

Maximum simultaneous outbound transfers per user
The default limit for outbound transfers to a single user that happen at once is three files. Any additional transfers to the same user will take place in turn as other transfers finish.

If you're using a slow modem, lowering this number to one or two may improve transfer times. You can also set a maximum for simultaneous inbound transfers to speed up your file transfers.

Right now, you can't control the maximum number of simultaneous outbound transfers or the number of users to whom you transfer at once. However, we've received a lot of requests for these options, and we'll probably give you greater transfer control in the future.

Share files with Napster users on TCP port
This option lets you designate the data port through which you connect with other Napster users. If you're behind a firewall, you should see zero here; otherwise, you should see 6699. Unless you know a thing or two about data ports, or unless your system administrator tells you otherwise, just keep the default port.

Search my disks for MP3/WMA files to share
This button gives you another chance (after installing Napster) to let Napster scan your computer for MP3 and WMA files, designating the folders containing files to be shared with the Napster Community.

If you would like Napster to locate MP3 and WMA files on your computer, click "Go!" The scanning process might take several minutes. Once scanning is complete, examine each shared folder to make sure you want to share the MP3 and WMA files in that folder. Again, to find shared folders, look for boxes with a black or gray check mark (shared folders) and boxes with a red outline (folders containing shared folders).

Again, Napster looks only for MP3 and WMA files, and the Sharing tab gives you final control over which folders are shared.

Downloading Preferences

Download folder

On this tab, you can choose the folder where the files you download from the Napster Community will go. The default download folder is the folder called "My Files" in the Napster application folder. To choose a different download folder, check the box next to that folder.

Your download folder can be different from your shared folder. However, files in the download folder (and any folders in the download folder) will be shared with the Napster Community.

Advanced transfer options

Maximum simultaneous inbound transfers
The default for the maximum number of files you download from the Napster Community at once is three. Any additional inbound transfers will be placed in a "queue" and allowed to take place in turn.

Lowering this number may make your file transfers faster, particularly if your Internet connection is slow. Setting a maximum for simultaneous outbound transfers per user may also speed up your file transfers.

Delete partial files when transfer fails
The default for this setting is "No." With this option set to "No," Napster will save incomplete files in the folder called "Incomplete" inside your download folder. With this option set to "Yes," any files not completely transferred will be deleted. With "Prompt me" selected, Napster will prompt you to choose whether or not to delete each incomplete file.

Remove successful downloads from transfer window
The default for this setting is "No." With "No" selected, information about a transfer will stay in your Transfer window even after it has completed. When the file transfer is complete, you'll see "File Complete" in the Status column. With this option set to "Yes," Napster will automatically clear information for files that have successfully transferred.

Proxy Preferences

For security and network performance, you may connect to your Internet service through an intermediary server called a proxy server. If you don't know the settings to enter for a proxy, don't enter anything.

If you know about proxy servers, you may want to change these settings. And then you might want to head over to the Napster Help Forums to share your impressive knowledge with the rest of the Napster Community.