Glad to make everyone's aquaintance.

Help.  I need to find out how to record audio (voice) onto my Dell Inspiron 8600, preferably in MP3 or WAV format.  What is the simplest/bare bones way I can do this.?  My users manual makes no mention of a built in microphone, does that mean there is none?  Also, I heard that I need something called Windows Recorder, which apparently I don't have, according to a file search.  I didn't find it on Microsoft's Downloads page either.

What to do?  Can anybody set me straight?  I am still running XP, Servicepack 2.