No Tags in windows Explorer

[jeddie]

Hello All,
I have just started using MusicBee. I have ripped a couple of CDs in Flac. When I go to 'Computer' within MB, I can see my files with all the relevant tags.

1. However when I navigate to Windows Explorer (win7) to view the same ripped CD, I can see only 'Name' and 'size'?  No 'Album name', no 'artist name' or no 'title'?  Is this normal behaviour? Have I got a setting wrong?

2. I want to buy a streamer & I need some flac files to take to shop for audition. I have done this before using MP3 files which I just copied from windows explorer to USB.  Can I do this with these flac files?  If so, how? Do they need music bee to play?

Sorry for newbie questions.

[Pingaware]

In general, Windows Explorer doesn't know how to deal with FLACs. You could probably change some hidden settings to improve this, but I don't know how off hand.

FLACs should be playable by any relatively competent audio player. Certainly if you're going to the shop to test with them, the shop should have suitable software.

[Alumni]

The quickest and easiest way to fix that is to install dBPoweramp music converter. It's not free but it's cheap.
It has an explorer shell extension that helps Windows to recognize FLAC metadata tags.

[Zak]

You could also try AudioShell, which is free:

http://www.softpointer.com/AudioShell.htm

I don't use it so can't vouch for its usefulness - I just found it accidentally while Googling something else.

-edit-
Actually, the screenshots are from Windows 8 which already shows extra tags in Explorer, so it's not clear if AudioShell does that.

[Bee-liever]

I've used 'FLAC Property Handler' for ages.  It is no longer in active development and the author has actually deleted it from his site, but you can still find it being re-distributed by several trustworthy sites around the web, (eg. http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pictures-video/174276-windows-cant-read-flac-tags-2.html)