Category: Zune software

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Zune 30 and 120 features I’ve recently noticed

Let me start off by specifying Which versions of the Zune hardware & software I’m using. Both devices are running the 3.3 firmware which is the latest version for both models. The Zune 30 is running the 435 boot loader & the Zune 120 is running the 1620 boot loader. I am running version 4.2.202.0. Both devices & the software are all running the current version at the time I wrote this post.

The other day I noticed that if when I sync either my Zune 30 or Zune 120 & if for some reason it stays at the screen saying connected I have to reboot it my pressing up on the pad & the back button for several seconds. I have my podcasts on my  Zune’s as either “Sync all unplayed and partially played episodes” or “Sync only the first unplayed episode”. The problem is that if it just removed one or more podcast episodes they will still be listed on the device as played. The workaround for this issue is to have another episode from any of the podcasts that are in limbo to be removed. That is assuming you don’t have to reboot again after removing the other episode. If you have to reboot the device again you need to remove another episode. Then after it updates after removing it from the computer & goes back to a screen where you can use it again it should have removed those podcasts. I like to mark an episode as unplayed then as played on a podcast that I have set to “Sync all unplayed and partially played episodes” because it causes me the least issues.

I also found a feature that I didn’t notice earlier on the Zune 120. I also don’t know which firmware version this was added to it. If you remove the headphones the device becomes locked & it will not allow you to use it until you plug it back in, just as if you have flipped the lock switch. Because I had a set of headphones I had just thrown away I tested if I just have a jack plugged in that doesn’t connect to headphones & it unlocked the device the same as a pair of headphones. The only issue I have with this feature is that for some reason unknown to me I only have this feature on my Zune 120 as my Zune 30 doesn’t do this. They both do stop playing whatever I’m listening to if my headphones are removed, but I can hit play on the Zune 30 without plugging my headphones back in. I guess they decided that the feature wasn’t worth making for the Zune 30 for some reason.

I also figured out how to deal with syncing two Zune devices to the same computer under the same user profile. It is slightly complicated & I will assume that you have set the Zune’s to sync to the computer already as I don’t want to deal with the issues of doing that again on either of my Zune’s.

First off I strongly recommend that you name the Zune’s with different names so that you can tell which device is which. If you only have one of them connected to the computer at a time then the device that is connected will be the device that anything that you tell to sync or never sync will apply. If you want to select a different device other than the one currently selected & you are not in the settings, you will see an icon of whichever device is selected. If you hover your mouse over the icon you should see the devices that you have available to select from. Then you just need to click on the device that you want to make changes for. If you are in the settings, you will want to go to the device where you will have arrows to change which device is selected, however if you only have one Zune associated with your current install the arrows will be grayed out.

That is all that I can think of for now. If I find anything else out or remember something else I will make another post.

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A new feature in the Zune 4.0 software that I just noticed

In an attempt to check if they have done something about the file count limit that had appeared in previous versions of the firmware I decided today to test that by syncing all unplayed episodes of several of my audio only podcasts to my Zune. In doing that I discovered a new feature, it looks like the software gives a visual representation of what percentage the additional files will take up on the Zune that is being synced. It shows up as orange on my computer, & it doesn’t say what the expected space is in any way other than the way the bars normally show up using space.

This goes as one of the many features that was never mentioned. My only wish now is that they fix the issues that I’ve run into with the software so far.

I’ll make another post after I find out if it runs into a file count issue on the Zune when the sync finishes.

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More issues with the 4.0 software

Well I decided to do some pruning on all of the podcasts I was subscribed to so I un-subscribed from several podcasts & since I knew that prior version would leave an empty folder I decided to go & make sure the folder was deleted as it should be when I tell the software to un-subscribe & delete a podcast, but it turns out that for some reason the folder was still full of every episode I had downloaded. Why it makes no sense to keep files that I specifically told the software to delete.

Even more infuriating is the software then tried to download the episodes of the series I just deleted. Which makes me wonder if it is that ZuneStore.sdf file getting messed up. I hope it is I also hope they release a patch soon that fixes those issues.

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I found out why Zune 4.0 was killing the Internet for me

Today I woke up early & couldn’t go back to sleep. I just remembered something is that I’ve installed some updates on my computer & realized that it might be Microsoft restricting the tcpip.sys file to 10 half open TCP connections. That was killing my Internet on my computer.

So I went to download a program to patch it to a more reasonable number, which happens to be greater than the default Microsoft sticks you with. I did that because I realized that the Internet on other computers was not wasted by the Zune software constant downloading of PDF files. I think they should force the Zune team & the Windows team to have a podcast that is at least 50% PDF files with this version of the software running so they can learn why it is a bad idea to only allow 10 connections at a time & also learn why they shouldn’t keep downloading the same file that they can’t read anyway because the software doesn’t support PDF files.

When I made the last post I had forgotten to check on a different computer if I was killing the network or just the one computer. I was still blaming the right company it was just two different departments that were working together to screw me over. To bad they still think that Windows XP should be choked to death so that it can’t do much. I forget how long ago Microsoft Imposed that limit on Windows XP but I do remember it was long before Windows Vista came out. Well a quick Google search yields Windows XP SP2 was the beginning of the abuse Microsoft Imposed on Windows XP. I did some more searching & I found that it was released back on August 6, 2004 or 2004-08-06 so they have had it broken for a very long time ([fergcorp_cdt_single date=”Fri, 06 Aug 2004 00:00:00 -600″]) I’m just glad other people have come up with ways to fix the file so that it behaves more reasonably then the way Microsoft seems to think it should.

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More on the Zune 4.0

As I expected the Zune marketplace is having major issues today. You learn to expect this when they release software for both the website & the clients on the same day. Also when they said they had free content on twitter on the same day that they release a major overhaul for both the website & the client software.

Anyways on to the new issue I found in the migration to the 4.0 software that they call an upgrade. I had several podcasts that were set to “Sync only the first unplayed episode” they somehow all were changed to “Sync all unplayed and partially played episodes”. which obviously increased the number of files & the size of the space used by the podcasts on my Zune & that happened without my consent.

Another issue I had marked several videos in my collection to “Never sync with Joecr-120” before the “upgrade”. After installing the 4.0 software they no longer had that tag. So now I have to go through my collection & set that again so that only stuff I want is synced to my Zune.

Please Microsoft learn from your mistakes & don’t try to do so much all at the same time. You are running faster than you are able to maintain when you do stuff like this. I really think you would have had a better launch if you had spaced everything out more & also I would have liked it if the marketplace didn’t keep crashing on me.

As I said earlier you brought back an old bug. I guess those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it & I guess that means the Zune team has not learned from history.