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Zune software?
TetraNitroCubane
Not Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered User regular
Not Angry...Just VERY Disappointed...Registered User regular
Please excuse the crappy title, as I am tired and a bit clueless at the moment.
My 20 Gig iPod recently bit the dust, after years of scratches, battery failures, and other assorted wear-and-tear. I loved it while it was in operation, but I really don't have the money to buy another one. Luckily for me, I caught a thread on this forum about the woot off for $100 Zunes, and I jumped all over that. I don't have any brand loyalty for MP3 players, and the Zune's hardware looks to be just about what I'd want in a player. So I ordered one, feeling secure for my digital media's remote playability, when I realized something:
I know jack-all about the software end of the Zune.
One of the things I truly struggled to avoid with the iPod was using iTunes. I hate proprietary browsers, and much prefer to use my own software of choice. Could someone with a bit of experience please let me know what I'm in for? Is the Zune going to thrust some horrid bloatware down my throat for me to be able to move, transfer, and play music? Is it going to be a pain in the ass to set up? Again, from what I've seen of the hardware, the package is a pretty solid choice for what I want, but I really know nothing of the software. I'm assuming I won't be able to integrate the thing into winamp, though.
Thanks in advance for the help.
tl;dr: Can someone please educate me in the software for the Zune?
My 20 Gig iPod recently bit the dust, after years of scratches, battery failures, and other assorted wear-and-tear. I loved it while it was in operation, but I really don't have the money to buy another one. Luckily for me, I caught a thread on this forum about the woot off for $100 Zunes, and I jumped all over that. I don't have any brand loyalty for MP3 players, and the Zune's hardware looks to be just about what I'd want in a player. So I ordered one, feeling secure for my digital media's remote playability, when I realized something:
I know jack-all about the software end of the Zune.
One of the things I truly struggled to avoid with the iPod was using iTunes. I hate proprietary browsers, and much prefer to use my own software of choice. Could someone with a bit of experience please let me know what I'm in for? Is the Zune going to thrust some horrid bloatware down my throat for me to be able to move, transfer, and play music? Is it going to be a pain in the ass to set up? Again, from what I've seen of the hardware, the package is a pretty solid choice for what I want, but I really know nothing of the software. I'm assuming I won't be able to integrate the thing into winamp, though.
Thanks in advance for the help.
tl;dr: Can someone please educate me in the software for the Zune?
TetraNitroCubane on
0
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I like it vastly better than iTunes, as it clicks with my methods of sorting more, but that's pretty subjective. You can download it for free, here.
Supposedly the new revision (Novemberish?) will be quite different.
That doesn't sound terrible at all, then. I admit I'm not fond of WMP in any revision, but hopefully it won't be as goddamn invasive as iTunes, nor as bloated. Can you actually shut the software off and prevent it from auto-loading on startup? Or is it one of those programs that launches all the time, and is running in the background every second? I'm really hoping it'll only take up CPU time when I actually want to sync the Zune, so I can use Winamp for everything else.
Also, I've heard some horror stories about the initial software setup. The Newegg and Amazon reviews seem to indicate that several people had hard-lockups when attempting to install the software at first, and couldn't get anything to work at all - even an uninstall. Has anyone heard anything about this, or is this just an instance of customer reviews blowing things out of proportion?
Sorry to keep pestering, but I still have a window of opportunity to cancel this order if the Zune's going to be more trouble than it's worth.
I've had my Zune for about a year now and I love the thing to death...but even more now since Microsoft is updating the firmware in November so we can have the same features as the v.2 Zune that's coming out. 8-)
The Zune software is a piece of garbage. It looks fantastic but it is absolute crap-on-a-stick with memory leaks galore. If not for performance issues, it would be great. Honestly sometimes I actively decide against adding new music just so I don't have to deal with the software.
The only thing I don't like so far is the lack of a taskbar/system tray mode. I usually don't need a player open, as my keyboard has media controls, so something minimal and out of the way would be nice. WMP 11 even has this, so I don't know why Zune can't do it.