Have a Lenovo notebook. Commenced the install to find that there is a Windows C: with 886GB/818GB Free… Lenovo D: 24.9GB/23GB Free. Assuming that c: is only for OS but not sure.
Additionally, looking to use Audacity for a 200 album task… What are my options if I also want files for Apple devices. Guidance sought.
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I’d recommend that you use the “installer” version of Audacity from: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/
and install in the default location.
For Apple devices, you would normally export from Audacity to iTunes. See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_exporting_to_itunes.html
Assuming that c: is only for OS but not sure.
The C-drive is for “everything”. Most computers have only one (internal) hard drive for the OS, applications, and data. (“Data” includes music files.)
Additionally, looking to use Audacity for a 200 album task…
What is that task?
What are my options if I also want files for Apple devices. Guidance sought.
Most apple devices will play all of the “standard” audio formats. I play MP3s on my iPod. If you buy music from iTunes you get AAC, which is similar to MP3 but it’s supposed to be better. And, AAC is almost as universal… If a device will play MP3 it will probably play AAC.
The two most-popular most-universal formats are WAV and MP3.
WAV is lossless. The downside to WAV (in addition to bigger files) is that embedded metadata (artist, album, title info, etc.) is not well-supported. Audio CDs use the same underlying format as WAV files (uncompressed PCM). If you want to make an audio CD, export to 16-bit, 44.1kHz, stereo WAV.
MP3 (and AAC) is lossy compression. Data is thrown-away and you get a file that’s about 1/5th the size of a “CD quality” WAV file. That doesn’t mean it sounds bad… It tries to throw-away details that you can’t hear anyway, and in most cases the MP3 will sound identical to the original (if you use a high-quality high-bitrate setting).
Note that if you open an MP3 in Audacity or any “normal” audio editor it gets decompressed. If you re-export to MP3 you are going through another generation of lossy compression and the “damage” does accumulate. AAC is supposed to be more-immune to damage from multiple generations of compression, but as a general rule you should minimize the number of times the audio is compressed.
FLAC (and Apple’s ALAC) is lossless compression. You get a file that’s almost half the size of an uncompressed WAV with no loss of data. And, these formats do support metadata. The downside is that they are not as universal and not everybody can play them.
A lot of people like to keep a FLAC or ALAC archive. It’s “future proof” because you can make a lossless or lossy copy in any format at any time in the future.
P.S.
You didn’t say what your install problem was, but after you get Audacity installed I recommend in installing the optional [u]LAME MP3 Encoder[/u] and [u]FFmpeg Import/Export Library[/u] .