How to record as learning aid

I recently bought a microphone at radio Shack that I plugged into the jack on the computor and record using the sound recorder( windows xp) It is a great help to be able to play the recordings back as a learning aid and it is surprising how good the sound quality is ( and someday hopefully the playing). The sound recorder only records 60 seconds though and I would like to record longer than 60 seconds at a time. Is there a way to do this with what I currently have or is additional software required? If so what is recommended ? Is it costly or is there freeware out there? Am I lazy and using your intellegence and knowlege instead of doing my homework and numerous Google searches? Yes.Thanks for any info you can provide.Fear not, I don’t intend to subject you to posts of my playing.

For free recording software, I would go with Audacity. aucacity.sourceforge.net or you could probably get it at cnet.com in their downloads section.

Thank you AngeloMeola