Vista is fair with MP3 player compatibility issues
By Jonathan Schlaffer
Earlier this week, we reported that Vista was not necessarily compatible with iPods but that’s not the whole truth. The truth is Vista doesn’t like other digital audio devices. Users of Samsung, Cowon and iRiver digital players have discovered those players are not working correctly on Vista either. All these problems boil down to a single issue within Vista.
While Apple was trying to combat the compatibility problems with iTunes updates which were met with some success, others were trying firmware updates which may or may not have worked with a particular player. It seems that Microsoft has managed to sneak in an update that will fix the problem which lies with the Media Transfer Protocol. It’s not clear if the update has already been issued or will be dispensed on April 10th, the next update cycle for all Microsoft products.
Apple is still advising users not to use the “safely remove hardware” function in Vista as it may still pose a problem for some iPod users. iTunes 7.1.1 addresses some of the problems but it is probably safer to follow their advice. Even with this update 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista are unable to use an iPod at all. It is unclear if Microsoft will be able to address 64-bit compatibility issues in the future.
Even with all of the ills of the iPod and iTunes under Vista, they still represent the best combination of hardware and software functionality and ease of use than any of the competition. Especially for those of you that have purchased from the iTunes store meaning you didn’t have a choice.
It’s not a complete loss though; owners of Zune players should have discovered that they functioned perfectly (after a couple installs) with Vista from the start. Coincidence, I think not. Can’t we all just get along? Please, for the sake of the consumer’s sanity.
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March 29th, 2007
[…] TECH.BLORGE.com, Australia - 33 minutes agoApple is still advising users not to use the safely remove hardware function in Vista as it may still pose a problem for some iPod users. …Vista is fair with MP3 player compatibility issues […]
June 28th, 2007
okay. i have a sandisk sansa connect 4gb.
i have gone through sandisks and i’ve returned them all like 2423493289034x’s
and now that i know this i’m mad. because now i have to go $%@!$@ return this one too.
grawr.
August 30th, 2007
New Movie Reviews
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting
November 19th, 2007
As of November 19, 2007, these problems continue. I have tried unsuccessfully to get my Vista Home Premium laptop to work with my four-year-old iPod Mini 4 GB.
Yesterday, I installed iTunes 7.5 and plugged the iPod in. It was not recognized at all. Today, I plugged the iPod in again. This time, Windows recognized it and installed whatever drivers it needed. When I tried to start iTunes, it froze. For the first time since buying this laptop, I had to do a hard shutdown of Windows.
Now I read that Vista has problems like this with all portable MP3 players, including Microsoft’s own Zune. Is Vista an anti-MP3 OS? I guess time will tell.
August 1st, 2008
I realize that this article is over a year old but I have been searching the web for this type of particular issue. I recently purchased a Vista pc and copied my ipod files to it (2700 files), and I then copied these files to my portable drive(Western Digital 120 Gig), so I could bring them along and play them on an Xp at work. To my surprise, The Xp machine sees the folder, says it is empty, but if you go to properties, it says the 18 plus gigs of files are in the folder.But, it still will not allow me to read, play, transfer, copy said files. It’s very frustrating, and to date I have not seen a lot mentioned concerning this problem. Unfortunately, I no longer have the ipod and cannot transfer the files from it directly to the xp machine. Everything works fine on the Vista machine but I can’t do anything with it on the xp. I would appreciate any kind of input or if anyone has a fix or a similar situation, Please comment. Thanks
August 1st, 2008
I realize that this article is over a year old but I have been searching the web for this type of particular issue. I recently purchased a Vista pc and copied my ipod files to it (2700 files), and I then copied these files to my portable drive(Western Digital 120 Gig), so I could bring them along and play them on an Xp at work. To my surprise, The Xp machine sees the folder, says it is empty, but if you go to properties, it says the 18 plus gigs of files are in the folder.But, it still will not allow me to read, play, transfer, copy said files. It’s very frustrating, and to date I have not seen a lot mentioned concerning this problem. Unfortunately, I no longer have the ipod and cannot transfer the files from it directly to the xp machine. Everything works fine on the Vista machine but I can’t do anything with it on the xp. I would appreciate any kind of input or if anyone has a fix or a similar situation, Please comment. Thanks