Move Zune Songs From PC to PC or Zune to PC

There's been a lot of Zune / Microsoft bashing because of the DRM feature. Now yesterday, I needed to move songs that I bought on Zune marketplace from my old PC to my new PC. (There were some songs on Guitar Hero II that I couldn't get out of my head). Having read about all the negative DRM press and listening to my son's stories about how complicated it is to move songs on iTunes, I thought I was in for somewhat of a challenge.

As it turns out. it's actually super easy. The challenge is only to find the documentation how to do it. There are two ways to move songs you bought from the Zune marketplace:

  1. Reverse Sync songs back from your Zune. Connect your Zune to your second PC as guest to make sure it doesn't get wiped show the songs on the device and drag the ones you'd like on the second PC onto the sync tab. Then hit the sync button. You'll see the songs syncing to you PC. Easy, no?

    If you reverse sync'ed songs you bought on the marketplace you may also need to get the licenses to listen or burn the song to CD. Again, it's terribly easy. The Zune app will just go and get the licenses if you're logged in with the account on which you bought them from. It will scare you first that it's going to buy the licenses again (not good for you blood pressure) .
  2. I was really feeling good about my Zune by then. After all, I have better audio quality because songs from the Zune store are 192 bit encoded (compared to the 128 bit on iTunes) but while searching through the Zune software I found something that got me curious. My son recently complained that he lost a bunch of songs he bought on iTunes through an unfortunate series of events that included a $30 fee to get his broken iPod fixed even though it was under warranty.

    I saw the Restore Library button under Account Management:

    image

    Low and behold, it does just what I says it does. I can re-download songs I bought -- even on different computers as long as I sign in with the same Windows Live ID.

That's pretty easy and actually pretty customer friendly ... just not very well documented. Hope this helps ;)

9 Comments

  • This was absolutely helpful thanks man! i didn't know those trick, Just to let know this month, zune software is upgrade hope, I will be for good and no the other way around :)

  • How do you sign in as guest?

  • will this also work if my hard drive crashed on my original pc? all my music at the moment is secure on my zune player and I dont want to lose any of it.... so would this process also work if i bought a new pc and re-downloaded the software and then tried the wireless sync or am I doomed to lose my library?

  • None of my songs were purchased from zune, but it seems to be allowing me to copy music from my zune from an old HD, to my new PC, by selecting copy to collection under the device tab.

  • i tried the above but not all the songs on my zune were synced to my new PC.What did i do wrongly? I am dying to manage the songs on my Zune 30 before i get them on my new Zune 80.

    Please help !

  • i tried the above but not all the songs on my zune were synced to my new PC.What did i do wrongly? I am dying to manage the songs on my Zune 30 before i get them on my new Zune 80.

    Please help !

  • How can i save all my zune files to my portable hard drive?

  • I never realized how convient this software is. I had to swipe my hard drive and thought i had lost all of my music. Only an hour after finding this i got all 6 thousand of my songs to work again. =) thx man

  • This is some wonderful info. I have never used the Zune before and was able to reverse the songs from my daughter's Zune to the computer with zero problems. Easy as pie. Thanks so much.

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