re: 2.2 DOWNGRADED to 1.4!!! :) wooohoooo

ignore stoic....

Really tho, it should just work, thats what MS gets paied to work for, making things that work so thath ppl dont have to make it work, this is just my opinion, im not telling anyone there wrong, i just at this point really wish i had an iPod...

everything should just "work" but that isn't how anything has ever really been...............everything has problems and unlike some companies at least MS acknowledges when things are a bit awry unlike oh I dunno say for example Sony and their constant denials of products being perfectly fine.

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Hold your breath someone is about to tell the greatest lie EVER!

there are more things that work than things that dont work, and is it really that hard for how big MS is to just make things work, i mean what was the reason for an update? was there someone asking for one? futhermore MS is NOT acknowledging the problem with the zune software, if so they would DO something about it, there is a thread, which i know you know very will, saying how much the new stuff sux, and there are like 700 ppl agreeing, they NEED to do something, the iPod out sells MS w/ this zune crap crazy style, can MS at LEAST keep the fans it has, before ppl just go off get an iPdon touch, and complaine about it in the Apple Fourm?

The Zune Team is part of MS they've stated there are things being put back in to the software that were left out for time constraint purposes.  Also there's a crap load of stickied helpful post which is acknowledgement of issues, which is why they are stickied, to help people until things get fixed.  You'd think as big as MS is things would just work but the same can be said of Sony, Apple, Gateway, Dell, HP..........cause you know they never have faulty products or things like that (Sonys favorite past time is denial btw).

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Hold your breath someone is about to tell the greatest lie EVER!

if they came to terms with it, why cant they give what most people want and have some downloadable downgrade that those who want to, can go back to the original, its not like there losing money by doing this, we still bought this peice of crap, can we plez use it the wat we want to?

Because that isn't what most people want.  Most people do not want to go back to software that simply chews up system resources like it were 1995.  They miss the adv meta tagging it's being put back in, they miss the rating system (i'm not sure if it's being reverted).  The new marketplace is designed to use the new software which is no longer a WMP11 coverup.  Gah w'e man go and use the unsupported 1.4 down convert because that's what "EVERYONE" is doing......heck everyone is using iPods to so we all might as well go and get one of those too.  The perception that "everyone" is downgrading to the old software is simply not true.  Most people that are either do not understand the software, don't want to work out slight kinks, or are simply to lazy to be bothered with certain things atm (auto-list are being put back in).  There's probably close to 5% of those actually complaining about the software that actually want helpe and seek it out.  To those 5% i am more then paitent with to those other 95%......get bent, they don't want help and all they want to do is complain it's ridiculous.

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Hold your breath someone is about to tell the greatest lie EVER!

Although downgrading will get you more flexibility in the Zune software, for me, I would lose some very nice features.  The Podcast subscription support is something I have long wanted and I use the wireless sync almost daily with my home dock.  I also like the improved album art.  One thing that can be said about most Windows products is that there is more than one way to skin the cat.  With just a bit of effort, one can still have as much control with their library as before.

 

I had finally gotten to the point where I considered myself an advanced user of the software and was able to control and maintain my library at a macro and micro level.  I also felt that a lot of the intuitiveness was removed.  However, a few posters on this board suggested a couple of tools which actually give me more flexibility than I did before.  Granted, that means that I don't have a single source for library management anymore but I can live with that.

 

For those having problems with tags, I would recommend you download one of the free library managers that allows for files renaming, retagging, and embedding album art.  Use the library manager to get and keep your library in order.  Use the Zune software for transferring files and managing Podcasts (and buying music if you use the Marketplace).  The level of frustration will drop significantly when you find other tools to do what you need.  Some suggestions:

 

Library Management:  MediaMonkey.  This app has some very robust tagging features and will imbed album art in the file if possible.  This also has a feature much like the old Find Album Info and you can lookup and tag groups of files all at once.  I use this to make sure my files are squared away before I bring them into the Zune Collection.  MP3Tag is also an excellent utility.

 

Audio CD ripping:  Exact Audio Copy combined with LAME.  These tools will produce good quality mp3s (plus various other formats) with very little setup.  Typically, I will load the CD and copy/paste info from either the Zune software or WMP or some other program that pulls all the album info.

 

I will typcially rip with EAC and copy/paste album info using the info pulled with the Zune software or WMP.  Once the CD is ripped with correct filenames and other info, I will use Media Monkey to get all album info and embed the art.  Then I will bring the new album into the Collection.  Although this does require a few more tools than using the Zune software by itself, I get the quality of file I want with all of the correct album info and everything is displayed/sorted/grouped correctly on the Zune.

 

I also would like a lot of the old functionality back.  However, the new features combined with a few new tools are making for a much better experience in my case.

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Microsoft Support Articles for Zune

 st0icr4ven wrote:

you know you screwed up when you wanted a device to manager your mp3's and had no intention of using the marketplace feature so instead of buying something by creative or sansa you bought the zune which is dedicated to software.

Therin lies the problem:  the old Zune software WASN'T dedicated to one bit of software. With the old Zune I could buy music from Urge/Rhapsody (which I did) and play it through both WMP11 and Zune. Even Urge stated clearly that it was 100% compatible with the Zune. That was the reason why I bought it. Then once I get it I find out they've updated it and the $50 or so I spent on music from Rhapsody/Urge has become useless! In order to use it I had to find away around it. That is what's so frustrating.

 

And you have to remember, consumers are used to simple, easily understood products. Not everybody wants to spend hours upon hours surfing through forums and reading manuals to figure out how to make a media player work. If you have that capability then glitches and bugs won't really bother you. But most don't have the knowledge, time, or patience to deal with it. If you think about it, one really shouldn't HAVE to spend hours searching for workarounds and fixes for a device that has already been made excruciatingly simple by a competitior!

If I remember correctly the old Zune was:  install software. Plug in Zune. BAM! Your entire music library is on your player. Then MS releases an update and suddenly metadata is lost, playlists don't work, the device wont sync, features go missing, and everyone goes "What the *** just happened?" So I can't really blame the OP - he (she) obviously doesn't feel like screwing around with fixes and patches and dealing with sarcasm in the "support" forums. So they go back to the version that works instead of spending a bunch of time fixing what was broken by an update meant to fix what wasn't broken in the first place. Can't really blame them for that. And they're not the only ones that share that frustration, so they do what a "support" forum is meant for:  they share their newfound info.

 

On a side note, I haven't had too many problems with my player - this new version is the first time I've used a Zune. The old version was used to sync with my 360 until I found WMP11 had the same capability. My only issue was finding out Urge/Rhapsody tracks were no longer compatible with my new player (even though I own them outright). Once I found a workaround I was able to get my music back and now I do all my music buying through the Marketplace. Since I had no previous experience with Zune and this new version is all I really know, I'm quite happy with it, but that's probably because I didn't use the old version extensively enough to know what I'm supposedly missing.

Well,
I'm glad to see that there is a way to downgrade (Although this probably voids warentees).

But people honestly need to stop acting like this is the end and that they are never going to patch it.

First, alot of the gripes of missing features can be done with 3rd party applications (i.e. tag editing, autoplaylists) or people don't even spend 2 minutes with the software to learn how to browse by genre because they have no patients.
Does everyone want to use different stuff? No, but stop acting like Zune is the ONLY way to edit tag data, or to create auto-playlists. Most people with larger libraries like myself used 3rd party apps for this stuff anyways, even before the patch.

The missing features are missing for an obvious reason, WMP is no longer the Zunes software backbone.
It's nice that The Zune Team wanted to be completly independant, but we want those features back. They have been taking our feedback and they have stated some of these are coming back soon.

And alot of the software bugs people have been having are user generated or library issues with crappy codecs that nothing even supports anymore, illegal downloads with crappy tags, overall crappy organisation, 3rd party applications (Don't even try and argue that, I can post at least 90 threads where people started from the beginning they used Unzoone or System Restore, both of which don't even rollback the drivers, and UnZoone doesnt even support uninstalling 2.2).

Also "bugs" with people not using windows update in 5 years or even knowing what .net is or not updating their video/sound drivers are not even "bugs" they are just incompitance and laziness. New software requires new updates. It's always been that way, get used to it and stop complaining about it. You are the same people that still use a crappy machine with Windows 98 even though it's nearly a decade old and wonder why your USB keyboard won't work with it. Get with the friggin program and stop acting like it's everyone elses fault that you can't keep up gramps.

Sure, there are a few (metadata, resyncing, video) that are annoying but fixable and a few that are not even fixable. But thats any software honestly.

All in all, I'm too happy with my new features to bother complaining over little things like a few tracks I had to edit or a playlist gone bad to even care.

My only complaints with the new software:
- Default GUI is pink
- Font on device too big
- New rating system sucks.

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- Justananomaly Tools: Mp3tag | MusicBrainz

 Justananomaly wrote:

First, alot of the gripes of missing features can be done with 3rd party applications (i.e. tag editing, autoplaylists) or people don't even spend 2 minutes with the software to learn how to browse by genre because they have no patients.

You can't learn to "browse by genre" in the new software because that function simply does not exist.  You may think that "sort by genre" is the same, but it is not.  And why do you dismiss the missing features as 'no big deal' because workaround exist?  Isn't it a problem that those features were removed in the first place?

 Justananomaly wrote:

Does everyone want to use different stuff? No, but stop acting like Zune is the ONLY way to edit tag data, or to create auto-playlists. Most people with larger libraries like myself used 3rd party apps for this stuff anyways, even before the patch.

So you have decided that YOU are the arbiter of the correct way to manage libraries?   That anyone who doesn't do things your way has no legitimate reason to be upset?  That using more than one tool to manage your library is preferable to having a single tool?  

 Justananomaly wrote:

The missing features are missing for an obvious reason, WMP is no longer the Zunes software backbone.
It's nice that The Zune Team wanted to be completly independant, but we want those features back. They have been taking our feedback and they have stated some of these are coming back soon.

That's a step in the right direction.  However your "get over it, it's no big deal" attitude is NOT the one that impressed upon the Zune team the importance of those features.  While you label some of the complainers as "whiners", they placed the necessary emphasis on the importance.  If the Zune team listed to you and people like stoicraven, they would conclude that they made the right decision in eliminating those features.

 Justananomaly wrote:

My only complaints with the new software:
- Default GUI is pink
- Font on device too big
- New rating system sucks.

Your main complaint about the new software is that the default gui is pink?   LOL  For someone who claims to have a large library, I'm surprised that the limitations in management of the sync queue haven't risen to the top of the list.

...and like your compatriot stoicraven, you complain about the complainers who do nothing, and complain about the complainers who take action.

Why are you feel so threatened by the fact that the OP downgraded his device, is now happy again, and no longer complaining?

 WillysJeepMan wrote:

You can't learn to "browse by genre" in the new software because that function simply does not exist.  You may think that "sort by genre" is the same, but it is not.  And why do you dismiss the missing features as 'no big deal' because workaround exist?  Isn't it a problem that those features were removed in the first place?

It's pretty much the same thing on the software, and on the device you can browse my genre still. Most large databases (amazon, freedb, ect..) stop carrying genre tags a long time ago as there are so many opinions as to what falls under what genre they stopped worrying about it and left it to the user to decide.
And obviously, you did not even read what I posted because I did state I felt they should not have been removed. But for the holiday launch, they had to nix some and keep some. I'm sure they will patch back.

 WillysJeepMan wrote:

So you have decided that YOU are the arbiter of the correct way to manage libraries?   That anyone who doesn't do things your way has no legitimate reason to be upset?  That using more than one tool to manage your library is preferable to having a single tool?  

It's a shame, because I never said that, nor was it the point. My point was that people need to stop expecting Zune to do everything automatically, and if they are not happy with the Zune's results when finding info, just use another program. No software exists that will give perfect information every single time. Not even MusicBrainz, and it's driven by user generated data and huge music databases, so why should Zune be any different? My point was if people would spend as much time managing there librarys using whatever program they want to use instead of seriously freaking out and complaining and saying "ZUNE SUCKS" because of two tracks in the wrong album they could have used Mp3tag or something, fixed it, and been fine. It's all to do with how they got their music to begin with.

 WillysJeepMan wrote:

That's a step in the right direction.  However your "get over it, it's no big deal" attitude is NOT the one that impressed upon the Zune team the importance of those features.  While you label some of the complainers as "whiners", they placed the necessary emphasis on the importance.  If the Zune team listed to you and people like stoicraven, they would conclude that they made the right decision in eliminating those features.

A few features they missed are handy, but are not completly nessessary to every user out there. Opinions change from user to user, and there are some features that some people might use more then others, but none are completly nessessary and in my mind, I veiw them as luxeries.

 WillysJeepMan wrote:

Your main complaint about the new software is that the default gui is pink?   LOL  For someone who claims to have a large library, I'm surprised that the limitations in management of the sync queue haven't risen to the top of the list.

...and like your compatriot stoicraven, you complain about the complainers who do nothing, and complain about the complainers who take action.

Why are you feel so threatened by the fact that the OP downgraded his device, is now happy again, and no longer complaining?

A very big library 16,000+ mp3 files including some very lengthy ones. And the sync queue isnt that big of an issue to me, although it would be nice to have the status bar for each file back, but it's not manditory or something thats making me "hate" the software or make me want to buy yet another ipod.
Soicraven is not my compatriot, I don't sit here all day and do what he does nor do I share all of his and try and fix users common probleopinions. Most of the time I'm doing research trying to fix peoples software issues.. Both of us are very active here ms, in that way I guess you could say we are, but other then that, no. I'm not always trying to be on the defensive as I respect peoples opinions, I just happen to believe that some of complaints I'm seeing are not completly justifiable and at least 25% are completly inaccurate to begin with.

And I'm not threatened by the fact that there is a way to downgrade available, I'm completly happy for those that hate the new software and want to downgrade. As long as they don't come back here if their device fails saying it's microsofts fault after completly ignoring their warentee (And yes, I've already seen it happen) I don't have a problem with it and I'm glad they have the choice.

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- Justananomaly Tools: Mp3tag | MusicBrainz