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AlphaLolzFlag for United States of America

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How to Sync entire MS Media Player 10 Library to Device

I have a 60 GB Create Labs Nomad Zen XTra.  I need (well want) a device that will store my entire CD library (many hundred CDs), so that I can find my music quickly and have it with me.

The device itself is nice, but the vendor software stinks.  I've used various applications in the past (most recently MusicMatch) and was hoping that the new MS Media Player (version 10) might now be up to the task of handling hundreds of CDs worth of music.  Once I downloaded the drivers for the Zen, MS Media Player seemed to recognize my device perfectly.  It reads/write perfectly as well.  It's the behavior of the MS Media Player that I need help with.

Basically, what I want to do is rip CDs to a share on a server in my house.  That's working fine.  I've set all the tags I want on the MP3s, and the interface in Media Player 10 organizes everything perfectly well for me.  The next thing I want to do is be able to plug-in my Zen and have the entire library syncronized.  To me that means all files being copied to the Zen.  It might be nice to delete files from the Zen that have been deleted from my MS Media Player library, but that's not a necessity.

The big thing is that I can't select the individual music to syncronize.  I need the entire library to be syncronized.  I rip CDs in batches.  In fact, in the past I've paid my kids to rip the CDs for me.  I may have dozens of CDs worth of MP3s to sync at any point and I don't want anything missed (and I don't want duplicates).

Is there any way to have MS Media Player do this (or am I back to using MusicMatch)?
Avatar of crissand
crissand

Have you tried the Microsoft's site for this:

Synchronizing a Portable Media Device with Windows Media Player 10

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/Videos/first_sync.aspx
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That doesn't seem to help.  It simply shows how to sync, but not how to address the issue above.  Thanks.
Please, verify if the content you want to synchronize is included in windows media player library.
Yes, it's there.  The issue is that the option for synchronizing the entire library with my Zen is gray.  I seem to need to pick "view all music", which is going to become pretty impossible once I've for 4-5000 files in my library.
Can you simply copy files from the computer to zen's harddisk using explorer?
Well, yes I can, and the other way around as well.  The problem isn't with MS Media Player sensing the device.  The problem is with synchronizing my entire library, which will have thousands of files in it automatically.  It appears I need to select the songs or CDs individually, which is hardly practical.
Looks like Creative Zen player and Windows Media player 10 don't work together. I guess you have installed Creative Media Source. Media Player 10 use a protocol called MTP to synchronize data, maybe the Zen's firmware doesn't have it. If so, install the newest firmware from Creative. It seems that mtp support only USB 2.0, but Creative Zen works on USB 1 t oo.

The problem was described with other portable devices.
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TMacT

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The problem is the volume of songs.  I bought the Zen XTra, which is 60 GB, because I have 60 GB of music (or close to it).  That is thousands and thousands of songs.  Selecting a view in Media Player where that many songs shows is going to be brutal.  It may (will) probably even crash.  I haven't gotten that far yet and don't want to invest in putting them in MSMP if it won't work.  The CD ripping tkes forever.

The problem seems to be that there is a button that's grayed out for automatically syncing my library with my player.  Creative says this is a MS issue, and I tend to agree, but of course there's no where to complain to MS on anything and they don't listen anyway.
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Hi klamerus,

I have about 8300 songs and I can use any view. Perhaps it is the speed/memory of your PC.

... TMacT