Trailblazin Ministries Blog

Tech Stuff

Windows Vista & Microsoft Zune

Written by LaRosa Johnson
Monday, 02 April 2007
Filed under: Tech Stuff

With a few minutes left here during my lunch break here at work, I thought I would take the time to talk about the adventure I had this weekend with a Microsoft Zune.

It all started when I decided that I wanted to get my wife, Robin, a new computer (I figured she deserved it, as hers was over 6 years old) and got her a Zune to boot, since I had promised her a new MP3 player as well. Because it's the year 2007, all new computers have Windows Vista (that's both a good and bad thing), so she ended up with a computer with the Home Premium version. No big deal, considering I had played with the release candidates when they were available and knew I could find my way around without any problems, and show her what she needed to know.

The fun came when trying to install the software for her Zune. I'll spare you the details and give you the steps that I took in order to get the software installed (if you're having problems) and how to reconcile syncing issues (such as freezing during file transfer).

1. How to Install Zune software. Simply put, uninstall Adobe Flash Player (may have to do it twice) and disable UAC. Reboot your computer (I had to reboot two or three times for everything to start working). Install the Zune software using the CD (it'll download the latest version to install). In theory, that should work... it did for me. Once you're done, you can easily go back and re-install the Adobe Flash Player plugin for Internet Explorer. At this point, you should now have to connect your Zune to the PC.

2. Connecting your Zune device. After spending hours trying to get the software to install, I had more issues with syncing the device and it freezing during file transfers. At first, I thought it was the device, but still having a working XP machine, files transferred just fine, so I knew the issue was with the PC. Long story short, if at all possible, do NOT use the front USB ports. As soon as I used one of the ports in the rear of the computer (this is a desktop computer) it worked without any issues. I was able to sync my wife's entire library (5+ GB) without any problems or freezing.

It took me over 12 hours to get this functioning properly, so hopefully you can save yourself the same trouble by taking note of these hints. If not, you may end up just as frustrated as I was, just about ready to take the Zune back (for a new one) and putting a copy of XP on a brand new Vista machine. Hope this helps!