More Zune Gotchas [Autoplaylists]
When setting up your Zune Software, one of the settings under Collection is for 'Zune Folders', where it will presumably store data when you rip CDs or download albums from the Marketplace. This is also where it will save any playlists you've created inside of the software.
Now obviously when you uninstall the software, it will keep this directory intact since it could potentially contain some of your music files. What it doesn't tell you is that it will automatically import any data it finds in your playlists! After running through the steps of my previous posts, it was still finding some of the albums from directories I was no longer including in monitoring and it was driving me crazy. I had kept my playlists because I had a decent number and didn't want to recreate them. Joke's on me because it just took all the tracks from those playlists and reimported every single one, including ones from when I was still using the 4.2 software!
So if you had any autoplaylists created, ensure you delete those (and really probably anything else inside that directory, to be safe) or else it will still import anything it finds in there.
Zune 4.2 and Windows 7 Libraries [Rant]
As many people have discovered, the Zune 4.2 software brings a new 'feature' to Windows 7 users: It automatically uses your Libraries to discover new media. For many people, this will never be a problem, but it brings a number of issues along with it.
First and foremost is that you can no longer keep your Libraries and your Zune monitored folders separate. If you try to remove monitored folders in the Zune software, it will remove them from your Libraries entirely, which isn't even necessarily something you want to happen! So you are forced into putting all you media into Libraries, and even more than that, you're forced into keeping media out of your Libraries if you don't want them scanned!
In my scenario, I keep a separate folder for freshly-ripped or downloaded albums so that I can tag them and set them up in such a way that they can be integrated into the rest of my collection. I like to keep these separate because there's no way to guarantee how the source of the album has tagged it, or how they've set up their album art (I am fervently against putting art in tags since it's an unnecessary waste of space) or things of that nature.
At the same time, this folder does contain music, so I do like to keep it in my Music Library so I can easily access it with the rest of my music. But now I can no longer do that with the Zune 4.2 software update because it will scan it into my collection and try to sync it with the hardware, which I absolutely do not want it to do (the Zune software already has far too many troubles with tracking moved or renamed files).
I was fortunate enough to still have my installer for 4.0, and I would urge anyone who does not like this change to uninstall 4.2 and revert back. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the software will attempt to auto-update when you run it, so you'll need to disable your internet connection during the install. After that, it will just prompt you when you open it and you can ignore it, if you'd like.
I just don't understand how it's so difficult for these guys (Microsoft and Apple) to get their software right. Why do we need it to be tied to some ridiculous piece of software? Why can't we allow syncing from anywhere? I understand that it gives them far more control over how you use your media, but it's ridiculous for the end-users to have to conform to that.
Back when zAlternator was actually functioning, I used MediaMonkey to sync and I found one thing out: The hardware has far, far less limitations than the software. The software requires you to rename all your album art to ZuneAlbumArt.jpg, where the hardware could read folder.jpg or cover.jpg just fine. The software will create a ridiculous database and throw all your files randomly onto the player where with MediaMonkey, I just synced my files over in the exact directory structure I have at home, and the player found and played it all fine.
The Zune is really a great piece of hardware, it's just such a shame to see such a terrible excuse for software holding it back.