I have downloaded (and paid for) music tracks from the MSN music store .The
downloaded tracks are in .wma format protected by DRM (Digital Rights
Management).

My media player (Squeezebox http://www.slimdevices.com/) will not play these
files - so I wish to convert them to unprotected mp3.

Using Windows Media player I have successfully burned the downloaded .wma
files to a CD and then ripped the files from the CD to mp3 format. These
files can then be played by my Squeezebox.

Thus I have achieved my objective, but my question is - why is it necessary
to burn a CD to achieve this result? Surely there must be a way of
achieving this conversion directly without going via a CD??

Answers will be awaited with interest.