Question

Sharing iTunes Library between 2 PC's on a Home Network

Asked by: grsteed

Hi All,

I'm trying to share the Music Library on one PC to be accessible from another PC using iTunes on a home network. I have 2 kids with ipods and they always want to be on the same PC.

The home network is working fine. I can see all of the PC's (WinXP Pro) and a Linux box and can access all of their shared folders.  There are 3 user accounts set up with the same name/password. I've shared the My Music folders on the PC with the library and set the permissions for Everyone to Full Control.

Now when I go to the the other PC without the Library I can browse to the My Music folder, drill down to the iTunes folder and see everything just fine. I've run iTunes on that PC and gone to Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab and changed the Music Folder Location to the shared folder. Yet when I close the preferences, I see nothing listed, even after restarting iTunes.

I've also tried mapping a drive on that PC for the remote library to make it look like a "local resource" to no avail.  

Has anyone been able to get this arrangement to work??  I'd rather not have 2 copies of the library on the 2 PC's since keeping them in sync becomes an issue, not to mention the extra disk space used.

Cheers,
Gary

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Asked On
2007-02-17 at 08:48:27ID22396227
Tags

itunes

,

library

,

network

,

sharing

,

pc

Topics

iPODs

,

Apple Software

,

iTunes Software

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
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Answers

 

by: eoinosullivanPosted on 2007-02-19 at 02:55:16ID: 18562019

This article sounds exactly like what you're looking for ...
http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/hack-attack-share-your-itunes-music-library-over-your-home-network-230605.php

It seems that you missed the final stage which is to sync the iTunes library database (the .itl file) across the PCs.

Good Luck

 

by: grsteedPosted on 2007-02-19 at 08:42:56ID: 18563939

Awesome!!  That IS exactly what I was looking for!!

Thanks!!
Gary

 

by: grsteedPosted on 2007-02-19 at 11:26:47ID: 18565200

Just tried it and it works Great!!    The key, as you say was to get iTunes to look at the .itl file.

One would think that if you told iTunes that your Music Folder Location was different, (Edit > Preferences > Advanced tab) it would look there for the .itl file.  NoT So!

By holding down the shift key while starting iTunes, it will prompt you to Choose an iTunes library. Then you just browse to the shared folder and voila, all your tunes are there!!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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