iTunes files to be seen on both Mac OS X (host) and Windows (guest) platforms

[HVHM3]

I have a MacBook running OS X, i installed VMWare Fusion and Windows XP. I have a program that needs to see my iTunes music files and album info, cover art, etc from iTunes running on the XP platform. The problem is all my music files have been loaded in iTunes running on the Mac OS X platform. How do I "share" the files/folder/info to iTunes in XP without copying or reloading all of it and have 2 copies of the same songs on one computer? With 4586 songs any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Bart C.

[WoodyZ]

I have a MacBook running OS X, i installed VMWare Fusion and Windows XP. I have a program that needs to see my iTunes music files and album info, cover art, etc from iTunes running on the XP platform. The problem is all my music files have been loaded in iTunes running on the Mac OS X platform. How do I "share" the files/folder/info to iTunes in XP without copying or reloading all of it and have 2 copies of the same songs on one computer? With 4586 songs any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Here is what I do as an example... I have all my music files stored on my Server and the folder is a shared resource which I then map to a drive letter in Windows. I then open iTunes and from the File menu select the Add Folder to Library... command.

Note: I do this with the Advanced Preference of "Copy files to Itunes Music folder when adding to library" check box unchecked.

That way I have access to the music and it all is still on the server.

This is easy for me to do as I never buy music online and all the music I have I ripped from the CD-ROM's I've bought over the years. There are some thing I'm still old school about and I like have the physical disc when I want to listen with the highest fidelity and then rip what I want vs. paying for a song with a bit rate of 128 kbps. At that rate I can just listen to the radio.

Just turn on Sharing in OS X and map a drive letter to the Music/iTunes Folder within your Home Folder in Windows Virtual Machine to that share and go from there.

Note: You could use VMware Shared Folders feature in Fusion for the same thing however I don't recommend it as it can be problematic although YMMV.

[HVHM3]

That works if you are willing to always have to click add folder to library. This scenario has to be automated. As soon as I import the song files into iTunes on the Mac the songs must show up on the PC iTunes as soon as I open it up. And it must include the album artwork. For some reason it seems the shared folder will share the music but not the album artwork. More help needed. Sorry new to Mac and VMWare so I kind of need a lot of help

[admin]

iTunes uses its own database to keep track of what songs are in the library. It's probably not expecting anything else to modify the database out from under it, and the file format may not be the same between Windows and Mac. Unless importing the songs on the Mac side can trigger something that the guest can observe and react to, I don't think you can do this. One possibility would be if you have iTunes set to copy files to the Library, this could be a file-created trigger -- Applescript could respond to this, but I don't know if Windows has a simple analogue (and you'd have to do this on the Windows side).

I was under the impression that the album artwork was embedded in the music files, so it should come along for free. Maybe they've changed the format, I haven't looked in a long time.

[Technogeezer]

etung is right on this. This isn't a Fusion issue, but an iTunes issue. It's very difficult to get two users on the same machine to share the same iTunes music library, let alone two different machines. WoodyZ's suggestion is probably the best compromise available.

[HVHM3]

There are a few steps in here that are a little different using OS 10.5 but this is basically the fix I was looking for...

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Quick Setup Summary - iTunes on your Mac and file sharing with Windows via VMWare

The following steps need to be followed in this order:

2. A Mac that has an Intel Core Processor.

3. A purchased copy of VMWare

4. A purchased copy of Windows XP

5.

6. iTunes for Windows will need to be downloaded from Apples website.

7. VMWare will need to be installed and configured. See the installation guide

that ships with VMWare. Configuration settings will be supplied for

operation.

8. Installation of Windows XP. Follow the instructions supplied by Microsoft

for Windows setup.

9. Installation of iTunes for Windows.

10.

11.

2

To setup sharing on your Mac for iTunes do the following:

• Go to the Apple Finder and select “System Preferences”

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• Click on the Sharing Folder icon under Internet & Network

4

• Check the “Windows Sharing” box

• Now click on the “Accounts Button”

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• Select the Account desired for file sharing access and then click “Done”

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Share out the iTunes folder within your user directory on the Mac. To begin moving your

library, make sure you have mounted your share on your Mac. Then follow these steps:

• Open iTunes' preferences

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• Choose Advanced

• Choose the new location for iTunes Music to be on your share, inside the iTunes

folder.

• Make sure iTunes is allowed to manage your music folder, and to copy newlyadded

files there (the two checkboxes under the folder chooser).

• Click OK.

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• In the Advanced menu, select Consolidate Library. iTunes will now copy your

music to the network share.

Next, quit iTunes (completely; closing its window is not enough). Open Finder, go to

Music » iTunes inside your home directory. Copy iTunes Library to the desired share,

inside the iTunes directory. Rename that file to iTunes Library.itl -- this is neccessary for

Windows iTunes to recognize your library.

Next, still on your Mac, option-click iTunes. It will ask you which library to use. Choose

iTunes » iTunes Library.itl on the share location. iTunes then rebuilds the iTunes

Library.itl.xml file, and finally starts as normal. To check that it opens the music from

your share, get info on a song, and make sure that the location is correct. Now quit

iTunes.

On your other Macs, mount the share, option-click iTunes, and choose the correct library.

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On your Windows machines, mount the “iTunes share” as follows:

• Select “Map Network Drive”

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• Now click on the browse button to select your iTunes location.

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• The following browse location will appear and just navigate to your iTunes share

Now locate the iTunes icon in Windows and shift-click iTunes to get to the library

chooser. Then simply choose the library on your share. iTunes will then re-create iTunes

Library.xml. It is a bit weird to find an iTunes Library.itl.xml and an iTunes Library.xml

on your share, but everything works fine. When you change something on one of your

Windows machines, your Mac's iTunes will update the iTunes Library.itl.xml file, and

vice versa.

Note: This hint is not for multiple users. While modifying your library, make sure that

only one instance of iTunes is running, otherwise changes will be lost if one of the other

instances is quit after yours. Probably you can write protect the library on your server for

other users to prevent them damaging your library, but I have not tested this.

[admin]

If I understand this right, basically you're re-importing the iTunes library each time you make a change and switch platforms. This isn't really "sharing" in the sense I expected, but I'm glad that it's doing what you want.