iTunes and multiple machines. retain ratings and more

After MANY long and failed efforts at having a in home "host" iTunes that I can rate and share with other machines I've figured out a pretty sweet set-up that may be helpful to some.

First of all my set-up is as follows

All three machines are on a Home Network with all sharing/streaming options checked

Windows 7 Compaq lappy hooked up to Pioneer 50" plasma and Seagate 3TB external hard drive.

+ By default the hard drive is drive H: when plugged into this machine

+ Created and changed iTunes default folder changed to H:\iTunes\Music

+ Drag and drop imports into Add Automatically folder

+ Check both Keep iTunes folder organized and Copy files to iTunes

Windows 7 HP lappy (gig use)

Windows 7 HP TouchSmart 600 (home use, possible gig use)

+ Both machines have had H: drive from above machine right clicked and Map Network drive so drive H: on those machines points to same files.



Now I go into default iTunes folder in C: on first machine and copy Library.xml

Then head to other two machines folder and delete existing Libraray.xml and paste file from first machine.

Now all three machines have identical libraries WITH ratings that can be opened in Traktor.

NOTE: I had lengthy file paths that caused Traktor to not be able to locate files, I believe simply because the paths were too long (pioneerelite//h/blahblahblah)

This way is sweet cuz you can hook the external drive up to any machine and the file path still works! You could also take external drive along to the gig to have DEEP crates for those crazy requests, even though I don't take requests. LOL

Do ratings and play counts stay in sync?

Not automatically they don't, but the copy iTunes Library, delete, and paste theory works in any order, so if I was eating on the gig laptop I could come home and "refresh" the mother ship manually.

It's not perfect but it works. My main goal was to retain ratings and playlists. This works