iPod Just bought a new laptop (Vista), trying to import library from old XP PC.

[TC81190]

I have all the songs placed in my library, but now I'm trying to restore the play counts, ratings etc. back and it isn't working. I have the Library XML file, but I'm not sure what to do with it, and Apple's help section on their site still refers to iTunes 7.

First I tried adding all my music, then hitting import playlist > Library.xml, but it said none of the song files could be found. So then I removed all my music and replaced the files in the iTunes folder with the Library.xml and iTunes Database files from my old computer, which caused all the ratings and play counts to display properly, but also gave an (!) file not found error.

Does anyone know the correct process?

 

[Blue Velvet]

You've got the second part right, you should then just need to point iTunes to the folder all your music is in, hopefully all in the same structure as it was before. Menu: Preferences>Advanced>iTunes Music folder location

Try that out. Edit: Try Mohan's way first.

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't know if there are Vista specific issues to this (there do seem to be some permissions problems with Vista and iTunes), but...

The standard process for moving the library is:

1) Consolidate the library via iTues (i.e. have iTunes copy all song files into the iTunes Library).

2) Copy the entire iTunes folder from My Music onto the new computer in the same location -- My Music -- while iTunes is not running. If you already ran iTunes once, you should delete the existing iTunes library first and overwrite it with the new one, otherwise just put it in the folder.

3) Start iTunes.

I don't know that there is a way that definitely works that does not involve consolidating the library.