We have one ipod and my wife and I both use it. She doesn't like my music
and I don't like hers. Hasn't been a problem until ipod started to run out
of space. I thought - no problem, we'll both set up itunes under different
local user accounts on the PC, point it to a music repository that we can
both see and have our own playlists - and auto-updating only our own
playlist to the ipod. This, in theory means, if we want to use the ipod, we
log into our own user account and connect the ipod. Easy.

....well almost. When I choose my playlist 'A' to update in my version of
itunes, it gets deselected as a playlist to 'automatic update' the next time
I log in after my wife has synchronised her 'B' playlist. And vice versa.
It's like, when it synchronises, itunes decides the other playlist doesn't
exist anymore so will unmark it as an 'automatic update playlist'. But then
that user logs in, it now does exist and becomes an option again but is
unchecked.

So I can acheive what I want by starting itunes, going into <preferences>,
choosing my playlist and clicking <OK>. But is a hasstle and wifey hates
it. There must be an easier way.

I am aware we can have our own complete libraries but there is a lot of
stuff we both like so makes no sense to store two copies of these and we
both want to be able to import music into the music library.

I am also aware we can choose to manually update the ipod with playlists but
then it becomes a process of opening ipod folder, deleting other playlist,
dragging my playlist, waiting for sync, ejecting. This is also a hasstle
when compared to the plug and go we've become accustomed to when we just
carried around the whole library.

Any ideas?


-KENT

"Kent Smith" <kent@smithnz.deletethisbit.com> wrote in message
news:eb9pkp$2d98$1@si05.rsvl.unisys.com...

With Apple products, you're not to "think different" from what they think is good for you.
Dump the wife.


Don

"Don M." <newsreader@nospam4fineartsnospam.com> wrote in message
news:kqSdnQPqnO1QNkXZRVnyhg@giganews.com...

I found the playlist settings (an possibly a bunch of other itunes config)
are surprisingly stored on the ipod itself - as opposed to the current user
registry keys where it would make sense. This means you can only have one
version of settings per ipod. When the other user logs in, itunes doesn't
know what to do because the playlist required to update doesn't exist.

Here's what I did...
I logged in as user A and set ipod to sync to Playlist A
I made copies of two files from the ipod and stored them on my local drive:
iPod_Control\iTunes\iTunesPlaylists
iPod_Control\iTunes\iTunesPrefs
(one fixes the problem with playlist selection and the other stops the
message that comes up and says something like "the ipod is currently sync'd
to another library" and asks something like "discard the files on the ipod
and sync to this one instead".)

I then logged in as User B and set ipod to sync to Playlist B and did the
same. I use these file as the 'master copies'.

I then wrote a script to copy the corresponding files back to the ipod and
set it to run in both users startup folders.

This works if ipod is plugged in before the user logs in and I stuck a
shortcut to it on the desktop so you can run it manually if you plug it in
when you're already logged in.

So now if I want to sync my songs, I just connect it, log in, wait 10 mins
and take it away. My wife does the same.

Hope someone else can use this info - would be easy to write a little
utility to sync these files into a user profile and update the files when
they change, etc, instead of just overwriting them. Essentially enabling
itunes to support multiple users properly. As it is, I expect if I make
certain changes in the itunes options, they'll get overwritten unless I
update the 'master copies' again.


-KENT

"Kent Smith" <kent@smithnz.deletethisbit.com> wrote in message
news:ebfa12$2n2r$1@si05.rsvl.unisys.com...
Wow, I think Don was right. It would be easier to just dump the wife.

TB

"Technobarbarian" <Technobarbarian-ztopzpam@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0fJCg.16492$RD.7733@fed1read08...


-KENT