Posted by NRen2k5 on 11/30/06 06:37

jan kowalski wrote:
> What is the closest WinXP freeware alternative to iTunes that:
> - Doesn't delete songs periodically (like iTunes seems to do)
> - Doesn't phone home (I have no need for Internet songs)
> - Allows songs to go directly into an existing iPod playlist
>
> I've learned to hate iTunes with a passion. Not only does it install
> crapware (like QuickTime) on my system in forced locations (iTunes gives
> you no option to put Quicktime where you want to put it) - and not only
> does it constantly phone home (thankfully all iTunes requests are blocked
> by my firewall) - but worse than that - recently I lost all the songs out
> of my iPod nano because of iTunes. I hate iTunes!
>
> It seems to me iTunes is highly unreliable in my use model.
>
> Long ago (probably a few months) I had loaded about fifty songs into the
> iPod nano and then played those fifty over and over again happily.
> Recently, I wanted to add a few songs. I "synchronized" with iTunes and all
> my songs were deleted!
>
> Why did iTunes delete all my songs from my iPod nano?

Because you synchronized. "Synchronize" means to make the library on
your iPod exactly match the one on your computer. Depending on your
settings, that may mean deleting songs from your iPod without asking.

> In looking back as to why all my songs were deleted from the iPod, I can
> only surmise that the original library was long moved and modified. Also,
> the operating system was rebuilt in the meantime so I had to reinstall
> iTunes 7. But none of that should have made iTunes destroy all my songs.
> This is why I hate iTunes.

Your ignorance of the meaning of the term "synchronize" is a pretty lame
reason to hate iTunes.

Actually I'm pretty surprised that you got as far as synchronizing after
a rebuild. I would have expected the iPod to indentify your computer as
different from the one it was set up with and to ask you to reset the
iPod (which would erase everything).

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