Workaround to Windows Media Player 12 dropped functionality?

Anyone know of a way to replicate the “fit more music on data CD” functionality that has been removed form WMP12? On previous versions of WMP (WMP11) you could burn data CDs and adjust the bitrate lower to make the files smaller and thus fit more songs on a CD. WMP12 does not have this functionality.
There are all sorts of file converters out there that can change bit rates. There are all sorts of disk burning tools out there. There are all sorts of media players out there. But, I can’t find a program that performs all three functions as WMP11 did. (iTunes, WinAmp, Realplayer, Switch, etc) I even found a “WMP11 for Windows 7” program out there but I am having problems with it (for some reason I get “Burn Complete” without any burning taking place and I’ve tried this with both my CD burner and an image burner.) I’m almost at the point of getting a hold of an old PC and installing XP on it so I can use WMP11 just for this purpose. Or, create a separate partition for XP.