re: Two People, One Zune Pass

 DrewH70 wrote:

 redpill Rabbit wrote:

Hi, my name is Brooks and I'm a Program Manager on Zune Marketplace.

As noted above yes with a Zune Pass you can download music on up to 3 PCs at a time and also synchronize music to up to 3 devices at a time.  This is noted in the Terms of Service and you should refer to that if you have detailed questions or to always find the current terms.

With the latest release of Zune as you've all discovered, we now track which music your playing and make it available as your privacy settings specify - e.g. don't share it at all, share it with your friends or share it with the whole community.

If you have multiple people, such as your family, sharing an account - it can be difficult to create multiple identities which track what each of you play.  My wife and I are going through this same process.

Since the Zune Client will use the current (or last) signed in user to associate plays with -- what I'd suggest doing is the following:

1. Create a shared account which has the Zune Pass associated with it.  each person can sign in with this account when needed to download music or get the monthly updated license to keep your music singing (sorry for the pun).

2. Each person create an account of their own and once they've downloaded music, sign out and sign in with their own account to play it.  In this way, all the music will be tracked based on the individual id.

3. A device can only be identified with one user id -- so associate it with whomever is the primary  user of the device.  all plays on the device will be associated with that account.

Sorry, I know this can be a bit cumbersome and we realize this -- I can't promise anything about future releases and we don't discuss future plans, but I can say we are aware of this problem and we're working around this the same as you are.

I hope this helps,

Brooks

I've tried this and it works good when playing the music from the Zune software.  However, when you go to sync the music with the Zune device it gives an error basiclly saying you need to sign in with the user id that downloaded the Zune Pass content in order to sync it.

OK I'm curious. Are things still like this? Can I have one Zune pass tied to my account and a seperate account for my fiancee? Can she sync her Zune with her account and zune pass music still work?

Here is a post I made on the issue of Zune pass sharing that is hampering the value of the Zune pass for families, and hopefully how MS can resolve it:

Share your Zune Pass, not your Social

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http://jeftek.com

 JefTek wrote:

Here is a post I made on the issue of Zune pass sharing that is hampering the value of the Zune pass for families, and hopefully how MS can resolve it:

Share your Zune Pass, not your Social

 

Nice reading.  I agree 100%, and have battled this problem since the inception of the Zune pass. I have myself, with multiple computers, a Zune, and 3 kids, each with a Zune and a computer.  I finally gave up and got myself my own Zune pass, and the kids have theirs.  I was fed up with my Zune card saying I've played Linkin Park 100's of times!

Also, this article was my first Clairvoyant experience.  Considering the article is dated Wed, May 21 2008, I've obviously seen into the future!

 I really thought this would be no problem when I bought the Zune Pass for my wife and I (the 3 computer/device thing and all?),but it is proving to be a real pain. We both have zunes and our own computers in our own offices on the same network through a wireless router,yet I'm having a hard time actually sharing the music with her. I have sent a couple albums to her,but she says that it will only play on her computer for 30 secs. of each song.  I tried logging into my acct. thru her pc,thinking that I could download directly to her's that way through my acct.,but I'm having a hell of a time.

Would someone give a few tips here if you know?
 Two zunes,two separate pc's,one wireless home network. If we don't care(because it sounds like we can't)how it screws with our zune social and all,how can we share one zune pass and download and sync music on our own pc's with our own log-ins,etc. Is this possible? Please help. The explanation may have been given above somewhere however if it was- for my own scenario- I don't quite follow. Simply put,what has to happen?
  Thanks in Advance......

Anonymous wrote the following post at 11-15-2007 2:51 AM:

 Karl Essinger wrote:

I assume two devices can still access one Zune Pass. So can I set the devices to two different users, so we can have two Zune Cards? How does this work?

Karl... Ignore these peeps... JUst have your library in a common place on the C: drive, then have seperate user accounts on the PC... One for you, one for her.. Should probably have that setup already anyway. Use your account to download crap, and have her sign into her Windows Profile and open zune there, pointing to the same pile of music... She should be able to log into it there... It's how my Girlfriend and I do it.. only I share the music folder over the network, and she syncs from her own PC downstairs...

Good suggestion in theory, but very flawed when trying to implement. I recently tried to setup multiple accounts under Vista; one for my wife, one for my son, and one for myself. Unfortunately every time we switched between accounts the display settings would go totally haywire. I run multiple monitors and each time my wife logged in it would flip-flop the primary monitor, move all the icons around, and a bunch of other random stuff. This not only affected the account you were logging into, but would propagate to the other accounts somehow as well. Very strange!

As for multiple Zunes sharing a Zune Pass, but being linked to different accounts... I'd love to have this... and it would seem like a good idea to implement it in the software because of all the new features that look at what you listen to. I'm thinking specifically about Channels. If my wifes listening habits are mixed in with my own then inevitably the music in the Channels is going to be out of wack and possible  inappropriate for both of us.

 Shanti Om wrote:

Would someone give a few tips here if you know?
 Two zunes,two separate pc's,one wireless home network. If we don't care(because it sounds like we can't)how it screws with our zune social and all,how can we share one zune pass and download and sync music on our own pc's with our own log-ins,etc. Is this possible? Please help. The explanation may have been given above somewhere however if it was- for my own scenario- I don't quite follow. Simply put,what has to happen?
  Thanks in Advance......

I have 3 zunes on 3 computers for me, my wife and my oldest son. They are both wireless. I am hard wired. They have to sign into the Zune software on their computers with my Zune user name as do I on my computer in order to gain access to Pass music. From there, we each have our own libraries on our own computers that synch to our own Zunes.

3 caveats...

1. No more than one of us can sign into the marketplace at a time otherwise it boots the others off. We get around this by not automatically signing into the marketplace. We only sign in when we want to download something, etc. After the initial rush to fill our Zunes (lol), that has not been a problem.

2. We have never tried to connect our Zunes to each others computers. Not sure what would happen. Don't want to find out.

3. The Social account I use gets all the plays and stats and such. That makes it a little sucky for recommended music as all 3 of us like different music. But, not a huge deal.

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Part of a 3 Zune (an 80 and two 8's) family. We love the Pass!

Same story - my wife and I share a Zune Pass.

Another issue not discussed yet (i think) is that the latest update now allows for wireless Marketplace access, purchasing & downloads from the device. I had to associate my Zune Tag with her Pink Zune 4,  mainly because it is easier for her to download everythin wirelesly instead of through the software.

Is this still the only way?

I swear I read last week that it was possible to have separate Zune "Cards" or "Tags" for the 3 separate devices/computers under one Zune Pass.  Now I can't find reference to it.  Help!  I just bought another Zune based on this information and now it seems that info was either changed/pulled, or I am a dope and misread something.

Sure, that is possible.  The problem is, when the other two Zune "cards" or "tags" log in with their username and password, they cannot download anything.  To download, they need to log in with the "master" login info.  Once downloaded to their computers, they can log back in with their login info, and play those songs. 

The downside of that is that the "master" account can only be logged in one time simultaneously, so if you and two kids want to download, one has to get in, download,  and log out to free up the slot for someone else.

What invariably happened to us was the kids would forget to logout and that blocks everyone else, not to mention their teen metal and pop was showing up on my Zune card.

Ultimately, I wound up getting two Zune passes.

...and to add to that - to allow the device to download from the marketplace via WiFi, it has to be linked with the master account also. :( Therefore, my wife's Zune has the sam Zune card as mine.

 TX T BON3 wrote:

...and to add to that - to allow the device to download from the marketplace via WiFi, it has to be linked with the master account also. :( Therefore, my wife's Zune has the sam Zune card as mine.

Which is exactly my problem. I want to access the zune marketplace via wifi, but must have my zune linked to the master account. Another problem with this is that the zune marketplace can't recommend me different channels just for me if the master account I log on to has their own music.