Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and iTunes

iTunes keeps reordering my songs!

bluefly — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:06:15 -0800

iTunes won't order/list/play songs in an album in the order of the track number. I have specified the correct track number of the songs in the info thing, but it won't sort according to that field within an album. Is there some way to get around this? I am downloading albums (from friends' bands) to my computer, and then dragging those folders and dropping them in the "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder (which was created by iTunes 9, I think). iTunes then does some magic which makes the songs appear in iTunes (and is organizing them in the iTunes Music Folder). But the songs are in the wrong order. Is there some other way to add albums to iTunes? I thought this drag and drop thing would keep everything nice and organized, but perhaps not. This is only happening with these downloaded albums, not with albums I buy through iTunes. (I searched around for answers, but they were so varied, I wasn't sure what to do. I am not an iTunes power user, but I would like to be).

I have a Windows 7 computer with iTunes 9. Thanks.

iPhone's DRM - let my music go!

DandyRandy — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:46:10 -0800

Does the DRM on iPhone work differently than the DRM on, say, the iPod Classic? I've got an iPhone 3G as well as a 160 GB iPod Classic, both synced to my home computer (PowerMac G5), which also houses my >26k-track iTunes library. Both devices are set to allow me to manually manage music.

When I take those devices to work and connect them to iTunes on my Windows machine (also authorized by the iTunes Music Store), they work differently. I can play the music on the iPod using iTunes, but I cannot play the music on my iPhone - all the songs are grayed out in iTunes.

Is iPhone different in that regard?

What's up with my music files on my PC?

ishotjr — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:12:02 -0800

What is up with my music files' titles turning into nonsensical four-letter titles? Ok, this is a little long, but it's a weird problem that is hard to describe.

I use iTunes on a (Dell) Windows Vista PC laptop. I noticed this issue probably over a year ago, but was too lazy to do anything about it until now.

Thousands of my music files are in files within "C:\My Music" that are named with F and then a number, F00 thru F49. All of my music was originally in "C:\Users\ishotjr\Music\iTunes\iTunes Music," and some of it still is. Within the F-named folders, the files are named/songs titled in three different ways.
1) Most are with four letters in caps, example: AJOM. They are seemingly random and not acronyms of the real titles. Within this, most, in the artist/album, etc. fields in Windows Explorer, have the correct info. A few have nothing at all in those.
In either case, if I choose to play it in iTunes (by clicking the option within Windows Explorer, where I'm viewing the files), it brings me to the song that is properly titled within iTunes (i.e., AJOM takes me to "Levitate Me" by The Pixies in iTunes).
2) A few of the songs are named with their correct name, but with the track number proceeding it (i.e. 01 Debaser)
3) Even fewer are named completely normally, with just the actual song title.

Another weird twist is that in iTunes itself, there are a handful of files that are actually named with the four letter names. Most of these are all from a Velvet Underground greatest hits compilation, but there are a few that aren't.

There seems to be no pattern as to how I procured the music and what's in these weird files. I did bring most of the music onto my computer from my iPod when I got the computer, but some of it I have purchased since owning this computer. The software I used to bring the songs from the iPod to the computer was some free program that I don't recall the name of and deleted to save hard drive space when I was done using it.

The real kicker is that most of these weirdly-named tracks are NOT duplicates, so I can't just delete them. Most of the time, it's one or two songs from a given album that are named weird and in the F-named folder instead of in the folder with the rest of its album-mates.

It seems that I might be stuck consolidating the 49 "F" folders into one (not so hard, just tedious), then trying to rename the thousands of song backs to their proper names by clicking them through to iTunes and manually entering the name of each song into the file name in Windows, then moving all of the songs to the correct place. It's not necessary to do this to be able to listen to the songs, but it's annoying having my files all over the place, especially when I want to delete entire albums off of my hard drive to make space.

My actual question is two-part:
1) Has anyone ever had this weirdo thing happen to their music files before?
2) Does anyone know a better way to fix it than to do everything manually (which will take for-ev-er)?

How do I safely move my iTunes library to a different HD?

valleys — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:50:47 -0800

How do I safely move my iTunes library from one hard drive to another? I've read numerous horror stories on here from people encountering all kinds of problems when moving iTunes libraries around, so would like to get advice on how to plan and execute it correctly!

I have about 50gb of files on my 110gb internal HD, which is pretty much out of free space.

I have a 500gb external HD (that I currently use mainly for backups of all my digital photos) that I would like to move the iTunes library to, then delete it from my internal HD to free up space for work on the internal drive, and have much more space for new music on the external drive.

This is on Windows XP SP3. iTunes version 8.1 (I think - not there at the moment, but I haven't installed the latest update that it asked me if I wanted...)

And yes, I have another backup (Mozy) in addition to the external drive.

So, how do I move that 50gb of files without confusing iTunes or risking losing anything?

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes?

booksherpa — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:27:30 -0800

How do I change part of a title across several episodes of the same podcast in iTunes? [rant]I can't believe I even have to use a question on this, because it seems like it should be dead stupid simple, but there ya go. Either I'm missing something, my Google-fu sucks, or iTunes really is that annoying.[/rant]

So I've got a bunch of TEDTalks in my podcasts, and everyone of them begins with "TEDTalks : " - i.e. TEDTalks : Joe Blow talks about technology. I'd like to remove all those leading TEDTalks (I know what podcast I'm listening to) because it takes up space on the screen when I'm trying to figure out which is which. I do NOT want to have to edit 70+ files by hand. Nor is TEDTalks the only podcast that demonstrates naming convention.

I run iTunes in Windows XP, so DougScripts are not an option. Nor is getting a Mac or running something in place of iTunes. I've tried doing a search and replace with a file renamer, and a different program that edits mp3 file tags. All that happens is iTunes refuses to recognize the files anymore, I have to reimport the folder where they live, and the names are back to what they were before.

There's got to be an easier way. I can't believe that something as basic as search and replace is impossible with iTunes or a script.

Methods that are free are preferred, but I'll consider paying if the software is that fabulous and time saving.

Keeping iTunes rating info in sync

your mildly obsessive average geek — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:11:27 -0800

Is there a way to keep ratings and playcounts in iTunes synced across different computers that works in Windows? I've found a Mac-only solution (echodio) but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent option for Windows.

N'Sync you are not.

Rewind — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:36:20 -0800

Can you help me figure out my iPod's bizarre behavior? I have a 3rd generation iPod classic (10GB - the one with four buttons across the top and a scroll wheel below) and I'm having a hell of a time trying to sync it up with my iTunes library. Everytime I make the attempt it always copies over the names of all my playlists (and places them correctly beneath the "Playlists" directory) and between 3 - 10 actual files to the iPod but nothing else, leaving the actual playlists there to select, but empty of content. Some details below which may/may not be relevant:

-One week ago, I went from running Windows Vista Ultimate back to Windows XP. Because the directory structure/music file location is different in the two OS's, I ended up having to manually edit the iTunes Library Music.xml file to point iTunes to the proper directory. When I imported the new .xml file it loaded all the files/playlists into iTunes without a hitch. iTunes looks exactly as it did while running under Vista, and I can play all my music files through iTunes now without a problem. The only issue is syncing to the iPod.

-When I WAS running Vista however, the OS crashed on me something like five times leading me to rebuild the machine and have to erase/resync the iPod the same amount of times over a three month span (hence the switch back to XP) so the hard drive has been through a lot in the past three months.

-Per the suggestions of some old AskMe threads, I tried restoring the iPod to it's factory defaults through iTunes. No luck. I also tried putting the iPod into disk mode, formatting the device through Windows, then restoring to factory defaults through iTunes and then resyncing. Again, no luck. Same two or three song sync up along with the names of the playlists and nothing else.

-I also tried bypassing iTunes entirely and copying music over using Sharepod. This worked... somewhat. In total I tried to copy over 10 files (all podcasts) Three copied over. The rest did not due to an "incorrect function" error. It always seemed to be the same podcasts that copied.

-I replaced the battery on the iPod myself about four months ago. It has also been connected to A/C power during every sync attempt so it's not a matter of it losing power.

Any thoughts? I'm more concerned that it's something to do with the library .xml file or the .itl file than the iPod itself. I'll be getting a new iPhone in about two weeks and while that will serve as a replacement, I'm concerned that I won't be able to sync to that either. Any light you might be able to shed would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

iTunes library sharing

anonaccount — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:50:42 -0800

I'm having a party at the weekend and planned on playing some music in the garden using iTunes - I need some help setting this up! My main music library is in my room on a beastly desktop. I planned to hook up my old iBook G4 to some speakers in the garden to play from the shared music library on my desktop machine.

This works - however it plays all music, not just the "checked" songs. I also can't use the iTunes DJ on a shared library (which would be ideal, as I want people at the party to cue up music rather than interrupting the flow).

1) Can I share only "checked" songs? (I know i can do single playlists - but I have a huge library and I really don't want to have to go through selecting just the checked songs to make the new playlist)
2) Can I hack iTunes DJ into working with a shared playlist?

I have an iPod too - if that helps!

Is it possible to edit the iTunes "Date Added" field without resetting the system clock?

anthropomorphic — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:41:28 -0800

Is it possible to edit the iTunes "Date Added" field? I am trying to relocate all of the music in my iTunes library from one computer to another and have had no luck keeping the "date added" field in tact. I am willing to manually edit the date added field for every album to match my old database. Is there an easier way to do this other than to constantly reset my system clock? I have over 1100 albums!

How to stop iPod nano time from changing when syncing with iTunes?

paleyellowwithorange — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:56:29 -0800

My iPod nano clock resets to a different time whenever I sync it with iTunes. How can I prevent this? My newly acquired 8GB fourth generation iPod nano reverts to a time 10.5 hours earlier whenever I sync it with iTunes. For example, if the current time on the iPod (set by me) is 10:30pm, when I sync it with iTunes, the time changes to 12 midday.

I've Googled to find a way to prevent this, and an Apple iPod touch discussion forum was the closest I came to a solution. But nothing suggested therein (basically: unplug iPod, close iTunes, open iTunes, connect iPod) has worked for me.

I haven't been able to find this raised previously in Ask MeFi, either.

I'm using Windows XP, which I keep regularly updated; both iTunes and the iPod are also updated.

iTunes/iPod conversion - temp file?

Sweetie Darling — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:52:23 -0800

Help me solve an iTunes problem I hope I won't have. My poor little Dell has been working hard all day, processing a .M4V file using the "Convert Selection for iPod" feature in iTunes. After 12 hours it's about 75 percent done, but it's raining here. Our power has a bad habit of going out during storms, and I'll be really depressed if I lose this in-process file if/when the computer reboots. I can't find a temp file in any of the logical places to look, even though I assume (?) iTunes creates a second file when it converts. I guess I don't know exactly what iTunes is doing right now. But I am basically screwed if the power goes out? Will I have to start over from square one, or is there any chance the process could pick up where it left off? If so, what do I need to do?

Bonus points if you can explain why I'm having to convert this file, in spite of using Handbrake's iPod presets.

Rain, rain GO AWAY.

I don't really feel like rating over 2000 mp3s all over again, so help me not have to do so!

Effigy2000 — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:52:32 -0800

I'm thinking of nuking my hard drive and reinstalling Windows XP. This means iTunes, which sits on my C Drive, will obviously be wiped and reinstalled. If I do this, will I lose all the star ratings and other individual settings I have for my mp3s (which are stored on another partition that I won't be wiping)? If so, is there some file in the iTunes directory or somwhere else that I could back up and add to my new iTunes installation so I don't have to individually rate every mp3 I have all over again?

iPod without iTunes?

Kwantsar — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 20:56:19 -0800

Is the standalone iPod software (that is, ex-iTunes) no longer available for Windows? If not, where can I find an old copy of the Windows install software? I want Windows to recognize my iPod (2G mini), and I don't want to install iTunes. Unless I am mistaken, once upon a time the iPod update software and iTunes were distinct programs; at that time I had the vanilla iPod software on my computer and Winamp worked beautifully with my iPod.

This is a newish Windows machine. I'd like Winamp to manage my iPod.

Help me share.

quarked — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 05:31:13 -0800

Can I share a streamed-from-home music library with my coworkers via iTunes, without making them install special apps? I've searched the archives, trawled Google, and I still can't solve this.

At home I use a Mac, with a large and well-organized iTunes library. At work I use a PC (WindowsXP), with very little disk space. By using Hamachi, Simplify Media, etc., I can already stream my home library to my work computer using iTunes. But right now I'm the only one who can see that stream.

Can I share it with my coworkers on the local office network using iTunes only? With Hamachi and Simplify, everyone else has to install those programs in order to see my music. I want my home library to be visible to the network (i.e., show up in everyone's iTunes Shared column) without anyone having to do anything special.

Copying the files to the PC is not an option, as there's not nearly enough space. And my iPod is Mac-formatted and only holds about 1/3 of my collection. I want to share all the music I have at home.

Being a lifelong Mac user, Windows does not come naturally to me, and terms like SSH, VPN, and port forwarding make me nervous. (Obviously networking is not my area of expertise.) But I am willing to learn. Can it be done?

iTunes annoyance

Aloysius Bear — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 16:38:46 -0800

When I right-click the iTunes icon in the Windows system tray, often the taskbar context menu will pop up at the same time and interfere with the iTunes menu, like this. How can I fix this? The iTunes taskbar toolbar works, but it takes up much more space than the system tray icon. The problem seems to happen mostly when an application has focus, rather than the taskbar. TIA!

I add artwork to my ipod but it doesn't show up!

slhpatterson — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:47:49 -0800

I have a Windows-formatted ipod that I run a mac. I am having trouble manually adding artwork to my ipod. I am unable to add the artwork in itunes and then view it on my ipod. The artwork will show up in itunes, but not on the ipod. Any suggestions? Thanks for any help!

iTunes is driving me batty

qvtqht — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 08:26:56 -0800

How do I make iTunes remember my column setup? Every time I open iTunes, I right-click on the columns and set the "Track #" column to be visible. And every time, iTunes forgets! How do I make it remember? I'm using iTunes 7.1.0.59 under Windows XP SP2.

The listing that I'm browsing is for my iPod, which I of course disconnect and reconnect every day. However, this seems to be the case for all track listings.

I have tried checking and unchecking the "Remember view setting for each source" option. I honestly don't really understand what it does.

I prefer foobar2000, but iTunes handles my iPod better, and that's where all my music is while I'm at work.

Best way to use iTunes on Mac to play music library on PC?

snarfois — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 16:00:02 -0800

What is the best way to use iTunes on a new Mac Mini to play my music library, stored on my Windows PC? I got the Mini as a media centre, sitting in the living room under the TV. The PC (connected wirelessly) has over 50GB of music on it, and I don't want to copy it all to the Mac. I'm a happy user of Winamp 5 on the PC. Should I...
a) Import all my music into iTunes on the Mac, unchecking "Copy files to iTunes Music folder", OR
b) Run iTunes on the PC, and share its music library across the network?
I guess the latter makes more sense, because I won't have to worry about importing any new music I acquire to the Mac. But I don't like iTunes much, and much of my library is in Ogg Vorbis format...

Bonus question: Can I create playlists in iTunes based on the folders into which my tracks are organised?

Name that Tune?

tmcw — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:56:02 -0800

Name that tune: I need a game for iTunes / some other MP that will quiz me on track names & artists from a specific subset of my library. (on Windows) (also, advice on music memorization is welcome) That's pretty much it - this is actually for a test that I have in a while, where I'll need to quickly recognize works of music (mostly Baroque, Classical, etc), so any tips & tricks for that would be welcome too. I'm pretty good at memorizing track names of my current library, but this stuff is a little more subtle.

Make my iPod nano visible again!

amber_dale — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 15:03:38 -0800

Why does my IBM laptop hate my iPod nano? I have an IBM T40 laptop running XP Pro and two iPods, a 3G and a 1G nano. Ever since I updated iTunes a while back, the computer wouldn't recognize the nano, said it needed to be restored, etc. At some point I started getting the 1418 error. I tried a lot of different things to fix it, including:

-Restoring the nano multiple times.
-Uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling it.
-Uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling an older version of the iTunes software.
-Testing the cable (it works) and the USB ports (ditto).
-Updating Windows.
-Testing whether the computer would recognize the old 3G (it does, both in iTunes and as an external hard drive in My Computer).

I finally gave the nano up as irredeemably corrupted and the Apple Store swapped it out for another one. I just plugged the new nano in and . . . same problem! In the right hand corner, it tells me an unknown device is connected. In iTunes there is nothing.

Any suggestions?

Windows iTunes accessing MP3s on Mac

bkdelong — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 13:47:25 -0800

(MacWinFilter) - How do I access a Mac OS/X Server share from Windows XP using AFP (iTunes)? A few years ago, I setup a server to host a series of MP3 files on a Mac OS/X machine. I've since left the organization where the machine still sits. My access options are SFTP or AFP. I just want to be able to stream these into iTunes like any normal Mac user....not download these huge files just to listen to them.

I have Bonjour for Windows but I can't tell if I need to install some sort of AppleTalk or AFP binary/plugin. Do I just create a WebDAV-like Web folder? I already tried afp:// in Windows / Explorer. Am I missing something very simple?

Help!

N.B. Please no "switch to Mac" arguments. I would have a long time ago if that were an option. ;)

Help me share my iPod over my local network through iTunes' sharing function.

fet — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 07:16:45 -0800

Is there any easy way for a PC-user to share their iPod through iTunes sharing without ripping the contents of the iPod to the local machine's disk? I've got a Windows 2000 box at work which I'd prefer not to load with music, and an iPod that I bring in with me daily. I play my music via iTunes, but I'm unable to share the iPod through iTunes sharing to other folks at work. I understand that in OSX one can tick 'enable firewire disk' and 'disable automatic synchronization' in iTunes and have the iPod share, but the equivalent does not seem to exist in Windows. Any thoughts?

Dont let me loose my playcounts!!!

gergtreble — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 14:42:55 -0800

Save my itunes playcounts and ratings! Damnable windows has crashed! Well it had to happen. My laptop has crashed, windows wont boot. Oh the Dispair!

Im using Knoppix to rescue all the files I didnt have a backup of (thankfuly not many). And all is going swimmingly

But heres the crux of my question. Whilst im transfering files is there a way of rescuing the playlists, playcounts and ratings from my install of itunes? Is it as simple as finding the itunes DB file and saving it? Im sure there must be a way. Help me metafilter!

How do I programtically access and modify music metadata entries through iTunes?

mr_silver — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:40:15 -0800

Has anyone ever managed to use iTunes and COM to access the iTunes database and modify MP3 meta-data tags? I need to change the genre for every track by a certain artist and since I have a list of over 800 artists, it is not something I can do by hand. Genres in my iTunes database (and MP3's) are a mess and so I've decided to try and fix it.

Following some simple coding, I've managed to work out what the most common genre entry in the FreeDB database is for many of the artists in my collection and I'm going to populate every song by that artist with this new genre. For example the most common entry in FreeDB for "Faithless" is "Dance" and for "Groove Armada" is "Lounge". I know this isn't a perfect solution, but it is better than the mess I currently have.

So I have a tab seperated file which contains artist name and genre and what I plan to do is walk through the entire iTunes database looking at the artist for each song. If I find an artist that matches one in my tab seperated file then I'll "correct" the genre entry in iTunes to be the same as that in the text file.

Herein lies the problem. Having looked at the iTunes documentation I haven't a clue how to:

1. Walk through every single song from within iTunes
2. Extract the artist value from that song
3. Write the genre value to that entry (which I assume will also update the ID3 v1 and v2 tag on the actual file, right?)
4. Exit modifications and the database without corrupting anything.

I'm using Visual Basic to perform this. Searching on the web has found me very little so I'm looking to see if anyone on AskMefi has any ideas.

Windows Media Center + iTunes Library + OCD = suck.

robbie01 — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 21:51:50 -0800

Windows Media Center + iTunes Library + OCD = suck. I have a highly organized MP3 library with thorough ID3 tags (thanks OCD) managed via iTunes on a Mac. The library itself is stored on a NAS device (LinkStation), but that doesn't really matter.

I keep iTunes open on my Mac and set to Share so my Windows PC can access the library via Windows iTunes. No problem.

My PC is running Media Center Edition 2005 (with all updates) and I want it to be able to use the MP3 library in both iTunes AND the Media Center app.

If I point MCE's "My Music" to the NAS device containing my library, it seems to find/add the music okay -- but it does a piss-poor job of reading all my carefully defined tags in the music files -- namely things like Album art, the artist, and sometimes other basic info on a few random (but thoroughly tagged) tracks.

Out of about 350 albums, MCE automatically imported art for maybe 8 albums, and every single solitary MP3 under iTunes/Mac has album art embedded in it--guaranteed.

I know that the Media Center app pulls all of its actual media data from Windows Media Player's Library, and I've figured out that you can "automanually" add things like album art by having WMP attempt to look up your album.

But this process would be tedious to do by hand for every track on every album, and what's worse is that I created some custom album art for non-commercial tracks, AND when WMP DOES find your album/art, the art it inserts is really crappy low-quality JPGs, which look terrible when viewed in large size in the Media Center interface.

So, long set up, but: why won't Media Center just use the ID3 tags in my MP3s, including album art? I don't want Windows going in and overwriting my tag data with what IT thinks the genre/artist/album name is just so it can add its own version of low-quality album art to the file.

And it's not just album art, either. On a few CDs, it will take half the tracks and put them under the correct album name, and then the other half it will create a new album name that has maybe the last 7 characters cut off. And there are about 10 tracks that it just completely blows, not reading even the most basic ID3 info, even though it's definitely there.

One of the reasons I want this work via MCE2005 is that I want to have access to my MP3 library on my Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender, with full art, etc. So forgetting about the Windows platform altogether is not an option.

So, any way to achieve this ideal set up:

* Single MP3 library on NAS device, thorough ID3 tags and album art associated with every track

* iTunes on Mac plays and shares Library to Windows iTunes (so far no problem)

* Windows Media Center Edition PC(s) look to NAS device for same library, but imports it cleanly with all album art/tags, etc. intact.

* WMC PC shares this clean/thorough library to Xbox 360 as WMC Extender