Share Unrestricted Music with your Zune

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 11, 2007
Updated • Dec 30, 2012
Music, Music and Video
|
0

Did you know that the Zune, the mp3 player from Microsoft, has a filesharing feature that is probably one of the best ever implemented in mp3 players? Did you also know that Microsoft restricted playback of song shared using that filesharing option to three playbacks in the new Zune players? The old players had an even tougher restriction set in place, their restriction was three plays or three days.

Songs do expire when they reach either limit which made the wonderful filesharing feature less attractive and more or less unusable. Users over at the Zune Scene website have found a way to bypass the three play rule limit of the Zune by changing the genre of the song to Podcast.

Yes, that is all, change it to Podcast, send it to another Zune and witness for yourself that music exchanged that way can be played indefinitely. It requires some work though because each and every song has to be defined as a podcast. The user of the second Zune can naturally change the genre back without imposing the playback restrictions.

To change the genre right-click on the files, select properties from the context menu and select podcast from the Summary tab under Genre.

While that requires some manual hacking especially if you plan on exchanging multiple songs, it may be a great option to quickly send someone a couple of great songs that they can listen to for as long as they want. Depending on the country you are living in this may be perfectly legal which makes the three play rule even more absurd than it is. Note that you need to perform this operation when the songs are accessible on your PC. It may be best to prepare all songs you plan to trade with a friend this way so that you can transfer them directly to your friend's Zune device.

Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. Justin said on November 30, 2011 at 10:18 am
    Reply

    The warning message about AAC streams when you load streams is because you don’t have the free Orban AAC/aacPlus Player Plugin installed.

    http://codecpack.co/download/Orban-aacPlus-Player-Plugin.html

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on November 30, 2011 at 10:56 am
      Reply

      Justin, thanks for the information.

  2. santosh said on December 1, 2011 at 12:43 am
    Reply

    does this support AAC ? or only mp3 streaming

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on December 1, 2011 at 1:43 am
      Reply

      I’d say it supports all pls streams but I have not tried that so cannot verify it 100%.

  3. Barnabas said on August 3, 2012 at 5:15 pm
    Reply

    Thank you Martin for a most informative and viable solution (it allowed me to play streams from a Netherland internet radio station in my WMP)! Continued success to you!

    Barnabas (USA)

  4. AppleRome said on October 7, 2012 at 7:31 am
    Reply

    Your steps’ recommendation is still valid until 7th October 2012.. Thank you very much !!

  5. Laura said on December 1, 2012 at 4:41 pm
    Reply

    Thank you!

  6. sak2005 said on December 9, 2014 at 8:03 pm
    Reply

    You must convert file.pls to file.m3u
    because file.pls open with winamp and file.m3u open with wmp.

  7. Lithium said on February 10, 2017 at 11:10 am
    Reply

    Hi
    2017 still kicking on Windows 7
    Thx a ton

  8. Dennis said on April 18, 2017 at 4:05 am
    Reply

    Hey, even i can do it, i stumbled through it and it works great! The only instruction advice i will add as i had to figure this out, when the wmp box opens that says save or open the bar on right says wmp click that drop down and select “open pls in wmp” once you do that it will work . Took me quite some time to discover that as i am no computer expert by any means. Having said that, previously i had downloaded codec packages and something about aac. None did any good. This rocks, i listen to a lot of internet radio and a number of them have dropped flash player and getting wmp to work had been a nightmare. So many thanks for this great solution to another problem that Micro-Hell will not even address. Peace- Out

  9. stephen marshall said on March 19, 2019 at 2:07 am
    Reply

    openplsinwmp came in a zip file. I unpacked it, and didn’t find anything that looks like an executable, and even the files in the “doc” folder were in a format windows didn’t recognize. I’m not stupid. you said it would open effortlessly. It didn’t. This a rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.