Aug 25, 2008

Moving iTunes From One PC to Another

There is a lot of advice out there on how best to move your iTunes collection from your old PC to a new one.  This is the best way that I’ve found so far.

The only thing that I would add to the instructions is that you want to make sure to Deauthorize your old computer before you trash it, reformat or anything like that.  If you don’t, the songs that you have purchased from iTunes will always have a fantom “use” out there.  You can usually have Apple wipe them all out, but sometimes they can get finiky, so better to do the housekeeping now rather than having to fight with Apple later.

Happy moving! :)

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2 comments

1 Mike Milo { 08.30.08 at 6:30 pm }

Or… you could just rip all your tunes legally bought from them so they no longer have that lame-ass encryption on them. Oh and you can only deauthorize all your computers once a year. trust me- with all the Pc’s I’ve destroyed over the years, I’ve been locked out of my collection one two many times. Screw Apple.

2 Andrew Milo { 08.30.08 at 9:03 pm }

Actually, the original intent of finding this info had nothing to do with their lame-arse encryption issues - though, to be fair, most of the encryption is gone now. Still, that doesn’t free up the songs that I purchased prior to their epiphany… QTFairUse anyone? *AHEM*

ANYWHOO… I was looking for this information because I wanted to maintain all of my cover art, play lists, play history and most importantly, my song ratings.

About a year ago, I spent a good two weeks cleaning up the 2500 songs that I have - removing the duplicates, actually getting cover art for each album and implementing ratings based smart list play system that avoids 99% of the most egregious phonic faux pas when on random shuffle. Prior to its implementation, it was not uncommon for a song like Tommy the Cat to be horribly derailed by a poorly placed encore of Theme from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. What was Steve Vai doing with Zamfir? Faith No More with Steven Curtis Chapman? Richie Kotzen with John Denver?

Anyway, by properly tagging the genre’s (which would at least go with the songs) AND by rating them with stars (which do NOT go with the songs ID3 tags) I can provide my ears with a much more enjoyable and congruous listening experience.

The only way to keep all of that configuration intact is to actually move your library over with the songs. Its not hard, but the sequence can be a bit tricky the first time. Thus, the video… :)

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