Every song that you send to someone else from your Zune is restricted to a limit number of plays before it becomes useless on the recipients Zune. This is really bad if you want to swap music files that you created on your own for example. There is however a (rather complicated) way to transfer files from one Zune to the other without those DRM restrictions. First you need to enable hard drive mode in your operating system.
To enable hard drive mode you need to change some registry settings. (without the Zune connected and the Zune software running)
- Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Enum\USB\
- Search for “PortableDeviceNameSpace”. This should be contained in the Vid_####&Pid_####\########_-_########_-_########_-_########\Device Parameters within the above …\USB\ The ##’s listed here will be numbers and letters specific to your Zune
- Change the following values:
- EnableLegacySupport to 1
- PortableDeviceNameSpaceExcludeFromShell to 0
- ShowInShell to 1
This ensures that you can access the Zune from My Computer to drag and drop files to and from it.
The trick so send files without the DRM restrictions would be to rename those files to .jpg and send them to the other Zune with one valid jpg file.
Now, take your Zune and send the folder containing these files to your buddy along with a real photo. If you only send a fake photo, an error is thrown. The last step is to have your friend sync the Zune with their computer, open the “containing folder” where the files were downloaded, and rename the files back to their correct extension. (source)
If you do not apply the storage hack before and use the Zune software to rename the files an error will appear. This is only working with the hard drive hack.
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eeerk…
keeep your ipod :-)
really, why bother?
i doubt that anyone stupid enough to buy a zune would want to change registry settings or be able to.
my motto: no zune, no problem!
Shacks right, the hardware is much better!! Ipod has better software but to watch a movie on it you would throw rocks @ your pod.