I love the Zune Hardware I hate every other aspect of the zune.

nerys · 11-21-2007, 10:31 AM

Overall the Zune is a horrifying device. I never had so much damned trouble getting a device to work. Its utterly insane how much effort is required to make this thing work.

I was forced (effectively) to install 2 things I swore I would NEVER install and for which MS has NO logical reason to force zune to require but do anyway. .net Framework and windows update. More crap infesting my hard drive. I lost count of how many things I had to install and update just to get this damned software working.

The software. The most horrifying experience I have ever had with a program. I can not believe I am about to say this but I finally found software WORSE than ITUNES and the winner is ZUNE SOFTWARE. I do not know how you people can deal with it. I plan to copy as much stuff to the zune as I can and hopefully NEVER run this damned program again. Sadly I bought 4 zunes (3 as gifts and 1 for me)

I hate this software so much I am getting angry as I type this. There is NO WAY to copy music to the zune. There is simply no way to do it.

I have to copy the music to the "collections"

THEN I have to copy the music to a "Playlists"

THEN I can tell it to SYNC to Zune and PREY it actually does this. GOD FREAKING HELP you if there is an error for it tells you absolutely NOTHING. it just says error. Nothing else JUST ERROR.

THEN its not truly an mp3 player. 50-70% of the crap I "sync" through the convoluted process gets "coverted" what the hell is it converting it too? and Why?

God I hate it so much. I will pay $100 to the first developer who makes 3rd party software so I can delete the zune software and just DUMP my music onto my Zune. I will pay $200 to the first dev that can make this thing Mass Storage Compliant with NO PC SIDE software needed afterwards ever on any machine (IE firmware hack)

OK Enough of the rant. Onto the good stuff.

The HARDWARE is a breath of fresh air. I LOVE the device. SO much better than an IPOD. I even think the sound quality is better.

The interface blows. same damned Database drive interface as the stinking ipod. What is with these people. Is it so hard to read and display a DIRECTORY structure. All the crap chinese mp3 players do not seem to have a problem with it.

BUT once your playing music its a DREAM. I love the giant album art The large screen is so nice. It feels good in the hand. I do not know why people say its too big. I LIKE this size. IT FITS. Feels good. does not feel like I am going to snap it in half if I breath on it wrong. Its plastic sure but it feels good. Nice texture rounded edges. It just fits. (Quid Pro quo - I have very large hands which might be why it feels good to me not many others)

I got the Woot deal (bought 4 of them) with the premium package. Damn it this thing sounds good. The sound quality is fantastic (the headphones work a little too well I can not even hear the phone rung 10 inches from my head :-)

The wifi has potential. its useless for syncing. Its so abysmally slow its worthless BUT zune to zune will be interesting once a hacker uncripples it. (stock its worthless)

A WWW interface and better a way to download MP3's direct from a website on the zune would be really cool.

RSS built into the zune would rock. IE if the zune could sink itself to RSS feeds via WIFI with no computer at all. I wake up and my podcasts are just there. Now that would be an ipod killing feature.

If I had known the software was SOO bad I might not have bought these things at all. I am glad I did not know though since I REALLY do like the zune interface (during playback) and the zune device itself. Kind of makes me desire a Zune 80 but not until its hacked.

So Here I will have to deal with the worst syncing software on planet earth and just pray some amazing programmer somewhere hacks the living crap out of this thing. Even something as simple as Red Chair style software that required NO zune software would make this thing SO MUCH more usable.

Why is the software so bad? Well I guess its a quirk of how I listen to music. I guess if all you have is solid albums its not so bad. but I do not listen by album. I listen by FOLDER. I put the music I want in a folder and I listen to that. I do not care what the album is or what the artist is or the genere or what playlist its on. I just drop that folder on an mp3 player and it just start playing.

When I drop one of these folders on the zune software it DESTROYS my folder construction and displays it by album. Problem is I might have 400 songs in a folder from 390 different albums and artists. See the problem. How the hell do I find MY STUFF and copy it.

I have to keep DELETING everything from the collection so that the ONLY songs in the list are the ones I just added. This gets tedious and NOW I just read that it might DELETE my stuff already on the zune since I removed it from collections. (this zune just might end up embedded in the nearest wall if that happens)

Its worthless for videos sadly even though the screen looks great. If I have to convert my videos its not even worth my time to try. I will just keep using my zodiac for those. It plays pretty much anything I can shove onto an SD card. Same for the podcasts.

You see let me describe the process of listening to podcasts on my zodiac.

I grab all the podcasts mp3's I want (already downloaded with Juice)
I insert the SD CARD
I drop the MP3's into the folder called "podcasting"
I insert that SD card into my zodiac. I tap Pocket Tunes. I tap OPEN I tap the podcasting folder and hit select all.
Done it start playing.

NOW let me describe the process on the Zune

First I have to move all the files via the network to the local machine (for some reason zune software will NOT sync anything on a memory card or another computer it adds it but when I hit sync it just says error error error for each song no reason no explanation just error error error)

Then I click on collections and I DROP the podcasts iniside here
THEN I have to sync it.
I open the zune and NO podcast lists. instead I get 14 podcast lists for the 14 different podcasts. What the hell? OH yeh ID3 Database Driven.

I go back to the software delete it all sync it. READD IT ALL make a playlists. THEN after adding it add it again to the playlists (there is no way to just add directly to a playlists you have to add to zune software first)

THEN I sync it again and NOW I have something approzimating a folder of podcasts.

WHY do they have to make this so difficult? What is so hard about a DRIVE LETTER with FOLDERS

MUSIC - VIDEO - PICTURES - PODCASTS

I click on zune drive letter I see 4 folders I just DUMP my folders onto whatever folders I want Music in music etc..

WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THIS that apple and microsoft can not understand?

Want to make USELESS annoying software that you have to spend a ton of money on FINE but why FORCE me to use it? What is so complicated or hard about drag and drop. So simple a process.

EVERY step of the way the software gets in my way and worse it too stupid to tell me what I did wrong to make it angry. And they wonder why people do not adopt this process.

SO I just hope that microsoft will not KILL such a nice device by encumbering it with this CRAP software (yeah right)

So I just have to hope some inventing user will HACK THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF THIS THING. FLAY it open. PLEASE I BEG YOU.

It such a nice piece of hardware would be a pitty to let it rot because of bad software.

Chris A new Zune Hopeful Taylor
www nerys com

IE3I STEVO · 11-21-2007, 10:50 AM

dude u really need to take a breath and chill

David · 11-24-2007, 12:13 AM

plug your zune in, go to your collection, then drag whatever you want over the zune icon... noob

wkearney99 · 11-24-2007, 02:02 PM

Gotta say, underneath the rant he makes some very good points. The desktop software is utterly abysmal. Bad enough to make even podcasts a pain in the ass to maintain. The new firmware is one step forward, but is chained to desktop software that takes two BIG steps backwards.

mclark2112 · 12-01-2007, 06:57 PM

I second the $200 bounty to make the Zune a mass storage device. Why does it have to be so difficult Microsoft? I will buy one, I want to buy one, but not until I can avoid all the desktop software.

DeadlyAgent · 12-02-2007, 10:33 AM

Did you really need to rant so much? I don't understand how people can't do such a simple thing...

justchillen64 · 12-03-2007, 03:20 PM

Why is this guy getting flamed for ranting? The top of the page says Zune Testimonials Do you love/hate your Zune? Did you get one for christmas? Tell us your Zune stories here!
He just told us his Zune Experience and as someone said he has some very good points. I can agree to the software problem. Especially the new software. When i got my Zune, about 6 weeks before the update I was extreamly pleased with how the editing and software in general works. Now I can't stand the new software, mosty because i can't edit the songs, artists, and album art very easily at all.

mojorocker · 12-04-2007, 02:13 PM

mine wont copy stuff from the zune to the computer, it is making me very frustrated

sowhatu · 12-21-2007, 07:23 PM

i too am pizzed that i gotta go through that dammed collection thing to find my country music i like. why not make it like WMP 11?

and dont even get me started that i cant simply drag and drop my PLAYLISTS from WMP 11 to the playlist on zune software!

and hey... i bought a 30 GIG mp3 player for use as a hard drive also!!!!

who the hell in their right mind would be able to listen to that much music??

gimme my 30 GIGS and let me use it for what i want!

neonpanda · 12-23-2007, 09:01 AM

so i got my zune about a year ago. back when nobody knew what a zune was. most people still dont...anyways, i got it after my ipod was stolen. i love my zune...sometimes. sometimes i want to throw it into the computer. when i first got it, i had to transfer all my music from itunes to the zune thing and when i tried to sync it, it deleted half my music. then our computer killed itself. (because of limewire) so our dad got us a new comp. an imac >.> which hates my zune. and now i am doomed forever to never have new music on my zune. T_T im thinking about saving my money to get an ipod. but..i do love my zune...i dunno.

frustrated07 · 12-29-2007, 05:23 PM

I couldn't agree with you more about getting that software to load onto my computer - if it wasn't for the hack here I don't think it would ever download and I don't understand why Microsoft couldn't make it just as easy to use as the Ipod.

sawfan862 · 02-13-2008, 06:10 AM

okay i think we petty buch all agree that the zune software blows
but man take it down a couple notches
we dont have to have a flipout bout it, if you hate the software soo much get the zaltenator and use window media player to do it alot easyer at least

jjfuder3 · 03-06-2008, 01:16 PM

i agree 100%. i just wish u could use a zune as a ipod with itunes an still have a zune.

hewlett2002000 · 07-26-2008, 10:26 PM

well i have to agree, the zune software sucks big time. but after you get the music on the zune its awesome!!!!!!!! i use zalternator and media monkey. even with the zune software downfalls id still rather have a zune than a ipod. now dont get me wrong im not a real big fan of microsoft but the zune is a better device than the ipod. ill keep my zune 80 and hope for a rockbox port or even a hacked firmware. sooner or later somebody will figure it out.

11-21-2007, 10:31 AM	#1 (permalink)
nerys Squirt Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 12 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	I love the Zune Hardware I hate every other aspect of the zune. Overall the Zune is a horrifying device. I never had so much damned trouble getting a device to work. Its utterly insane how much effort is required to make this thing work. I was forced (effectively) to install 2 things I swore I would NEVER install and for which MS has NO logical reason to force zune to require but do anyway. .net Framework and windows update. More crap infesting my hard drive. I lost count of how many things I had to install and update just to get this damned software working. The software. The most horrifying experience I have ever had with a program. I can not believe I am about to say this but I finally found software WORSE than ITUNES and the winner is ZUNE SOFTWARE. I do not know how you people can deal with it. I plan to copy as much stuff to the zune as I can and hopefully NEVER run this damned program again. Sadly I bought 4 zunes (3 as gifts and 1 for me) I hate this software so much I am getting angry as I type this. There is NO WAY to copy music to the zune. There is simply no way to do it. I have to copy the music to the "collections" THEN I have to copy the music to a "Playlists" THEN I can tell it to SYNC to Zune and PREY it actually does this. GOD FREAKING HELP you if there is an error for it tells you absolutely NOTHING. it just says error. Nothing else JUST ERROR. THEN its not truly an mp3 player. 50-70% of the crap I "sync" through the convoluted process gets "coverted" what the hell is it converting it too? and Why? God I hate it so much. I will pay $100 to the first developer who makes 3rd party software so I can delete the zune software and just DUMP my music onto my Zune. I will pay $200 to the first dev that can make this thing Mass Storage Compliant with NO PC SIDE software needed afterwards ever on any machine (IE firmware hack) OK Enough of the rant. Onto the good stuff. The HARDWARE is a breath of fresh air. I LOVE the device. SO much better than an IPOD. I even think the sound quality is better. The interface blows. same damned Database drive interface as the stinking ipod. What is with these people. Is it so hard to read and display a DIRECTORY structure. All the crap chinese mp3 players do not seem to have a problem with it. BUT once your playing music its a DREAM. I love the giant album art The large screen is so nice. It feels good in the hand. I do not know why people say its too big. I LIKE this size. IT FITS. Feels good. does not feel like I am going to snap it in half if I breath on it wrong. Its plastic sure but it feels good. Nice texture rounded edges. It just fits. (Quid Pro quo - I have very large hands which might be why it feels good to me not many others) I got the Woot deal (bought 4 of them) with the premium package. Damn it this thing sounds good. The sound quality is fantastic (the headphones work a little too well I can not even hear the phone rung 10 inches from my head :-) The wifi has potential. its useless for syncing. Its so abysmally slow its worthless BUT zune to zune will be interesting once a hacker uncripples it. (stock its worthless) A WWW interface and better a way to download MP3's direct from a website on the zune would be really cool. RSS built into the zune would rock. IE if the zune could sink itself to RSS feeds via WIFI with no computer at all. I wake up and my podcasts are just there. Now that would be an ipod killing feature. If I had known the software was SOO bad I might not have bought these things at all. I am glad I did not know though since I REALLY do like the zune interface (during playback) and the zune device itself. Kind of makes me desire a Zune 80 but not until its hacked. So Here I will have to deal with the worst syncing software on planet earth and just pray some amazing programmer somewhere hacks the living crap out of this thing. Even something as simple as Red Chair style software that required NO zune software would make this thing SO MUCH more usable. Why is the software so bad? Well I guess its a quirk of how I listen to music. I guess if all you have is solid albums its not so bad. but I do not listen by album. I listen by FOLDER. I put the music I want in a folder and I listen to that. I do not care what the album is or what the artist is or the genere or what playlist its on. I just drop that folder on an mp3 player and it just start playing. When I drop one of these folders on the zune software it DESTROYS my folder construction and displays it by album. Problem is I might have 400 songs in a folder from 390 different albums and artists. See the problem. How the hell do I find MY STUFF and copy it. I have to keep DELETING everything from the collection so that the ONLY songs in the list are the ones I just added. This gets tedious and NOW I just read that it might DELETE my stuff already on the zune since I removed it from collections. (this zune just might end up embedded in the nearest wall if that happens) Its worthless for videos sadly even though the screen looks great. If I have to convert my videos its not even worth my time to try. I will just keep using my zodiac for those. It plays pretty much anything I can shove onto an SD card. Same for the podcasts. You see let me describe the process of listening to podcasts on my zodiac. I grab all the podcasts mp3's I want (already downloaded with Juice) I insert the SD CARD I drop the MP3's into the folder called "podcasting" I insert that SD card into my zodiac. I tap Pocket Tunes. I tap OPEN I tap the podcasting folder and hit select all. Done it start playing. NOW let me describe the process on the Zune First I have to move all the files via the network to the local machine (for some reason zune software will NOT sync anything on a memory card or another computer it adds it but when I hit sync it just says error error error for each song no reason no explanation just error error error) Then I click on collections and I DROP the podcasts iniside here THEN I have to sync it. I open the zune and NO podcast lists. instead I get 14 podcast lists for the 14 different podcasts. What the hell? OH yeh ID3 Database Driven. I go back to the software delete it all sync it. READD IT ALL make a playlists. THEN after adding it add it again to the playlists (there is no way to just add directly to a playlists you have to add to zune software first) THEN I sync it again and NOW I have something approzimating a folder of podcasts. WHY do they have to make this so difficult? What is so hard about a DRIVE LETTER with FOLDERS MUSIC - VIDEO - PICTURES - PODCASTS I click on zune drive letter I see 4 folders I just DUMP my folders onto whatever folders I want Music in music etc.. WHAT IS SO HARD ABOUT THIS that apple and microsoft can not understand? Want to make USELESS annoying software that you have to spend a ton of money on FINE but why FORCE me to use it? What is so complicated or hard about drag and drop. So simple a process. EVERY step of the way the software gets in my way and worse it too stupid to tell me what I did wrong to make it angry. And they wonder why people do not adopt this process. SO I just hope that microsoft will not KILL such a nice device by encumbering it with this CRAP software (yeah right) So I just have to hope some inventing user will HACK THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF THIS THING. FLAY it open. PLEASE I BEG YOU. It such a nice piece of hardware would be a pitty to let it rot because of bad software. Chris A new Zune Hopeful Taylor www nerys com

11-21-2007, 10:50 AM	#2 (permalink)
IE3I STEVO Experienced Zuner Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: fontana california Posts: 214 Reputation: 11 $zB: 58 Donate	dude u really need to take a breath and chill __________________ made by saab master of sigs To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

11-24-2007, 12:13 AM	#3 (permalink)
David I eat babies An army of many Retired Staff Expert Zuner Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: right behind you Posts: 2,854 Reputation: 61 $zB: 79 Donate	plug your zune in, go to your collection, then drag whatever you want over the zune icon... noob __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If you can beat 'em to a pulp, make 'em join you.

12-02-2007, 10:33 AM	#6 (permalink)
DeadlyAgent Jr. Zuner Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 39 Reputation: 12 $zB: 0 Donate	Did you really need to rant so much? I don't understand how people can't do such a simple thing... __________________ My Zune Card To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

12-23-2007, 09:01 AM	#10 (permalink)
neonpanda Zewbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: in a land of make believe. Posts: 3 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	so i got my zune about a year ago. back when nobody knew what a zune was. most people still dont...anyways, i got it after my ipod was stolen. i love my zune...sometimes. sometimes i want to throw it into the computer. when i first got it, i had to transfer all my music from itunes to the zune thing and when i tried to sync it, it deleted half my music. then our computer killed itself. (because of limewire) so our dad got us a new comp. an imac >.> which hates my zune. and now i am doomed forever to never have new music on my zune. T_T im thinking about saving my money to get an ipod. but..i do love my zune...i dunno. __________________ lets go to a land of make believe. [P.L.U.R] <3

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11-24-2007, 02:02 PM	#4 (permalink)
wkearney99 Zewbie Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 2 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	Gotta say, underneath the rant he makes some very good points. The desktop software is utterly abysmal. Bad enough to make even podcasts a pain in the ass to maintain. The new firmware is one step forward, but is chained to desktop software that takes two BIG steps backwards.

12-01-2007, 06:57 PM	#5 (permalink)
mclark2112 Zewbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	I second the $200 bounty to make the Zune a mass storage device. Why does it have to be so difficult Microsoft? I will buy one, I want to buy one, but not until I can avoid all the desktop software.

12-03-2007, 03:20 PM	#7 (permalink)
justchillen64 Squirt Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 25 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	Why is this guy getting flamed for ranting? The top of the page says Zune Testimonials Do you love/hate your Zune? Did you get one for christmas? Tell us your Zune stories here! He just told us his Zune Experience and as someone said he has some very good points. I can agree to the software problem. Especially the new software. When i got my Zune, about 6 weeks before the update I was extreamly pleased with how the editing and software in general works. Now I can't stand the new software, mosty because i can't edit the songs, artists, and album art very easily at all.

12-04-2007, 02:13 PM	#8 (permalink)
mojorocker Posting Disabled Experienced Zuner Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: anywhere i want to be Posts: 142 Reputation: 11 $zB: 11 Donate	mine wont copy stuff from the zune to the computer, it is making me very frustrated

12-21-2007, 07:23 PM	#9 (permalink)
sowhatu Jr. Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: hamilton, ontario Posts: 362 Reputation: 12 $zB: 5 Donate	i too am pizzed that i gotta go through that dammed collection thing to find my country music i like. why not make it like WMP 11? and dont even get me started that i cant simply drag and drop my PLAYLISTS from WMP 11 to the playlist on zune software! and hey... i bought a 30 GIG mp3 player for use as a hard drive also!!!! who the hell in their right mind would be able to listen to that much music?? gimme my 30 GIGS and let me use it for what i want!

12-29-2007, 05:23 PM	#11 (permalink)
frustrated07 Zewbie Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 1 Reputation: 10 $zB: 0 Donate	I couldn't agree with you more about getting that software to load onto my computer - if it wasn't for the hack here I don't think it would ever download and I don't understand why Microsoft couldn't make it just as easy to use as the Ipod.

02-13-2008, 06:10 AM	#12 (permalink)
sawfan862 Experienced Zuner Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Where My Bed Is. Posts: 211 Reputation: 24 $zB: 10 Donate	okay i think we petty buch all agree that the zune software blows but man take it down a couple notches we dont have to have a flipout bout it, if you hate the software soo much get the zaltenator and use window media player to do it alot easyer at least __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

03-06-2008, 01:16 PM	#13 (permalink)
jjfuder3 Zuner Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 65 Reputation: 9 $zB: 49 Donate	i agree 100%. i just wish u could use a zune as a ipod with itunes an still have a zune.

07-26-2008, 10:26 PM	#14 (permalink)
hewlett2002000 Squirt Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 24 Reputation: 10 $zB: 26 Donate	software..... well i have to agree, the zune software sucks big time. but after you get the music on the zune its awesome!!!!!!!! i use zalternator and media monkey. even with the zune software downfalls id still rather have a zune than a ipod. now dont get me wrong im not a real big fan of microsoft but the zune is a better device than the ipod. ill keep my zune 80 and hope for a rockbox port or even a hacked firmware. sooner or later somebody will figure it out.

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