I've gotten lots and lots of questions about my previous couple of posts about how to move your music library from Apple's iTunes to Windows Media Player over the past couple of months. Jerry Leynes of Jacksonville, Florida has cleaned up and augmented my posts along with a few others to create a definitive guide to getting your library moved over, along with clarifying text that I was missing. Jerry's text below is about how to move the music all the way from iTunes to the miniSD card for his Sprint Pocket PC, but the instructions should work for any Windows Media Player compatible MP3 player (including Creative Zen, iRiver MP3 players, Toshiba Gigabeats, etc.) Thanks to Jerry for the well-written and very useful post!

In Jerry's words (please note this is not for songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store!):

Converting iTunes music files to MP3 format, transferring these to Windows Media Player 11 using MusicBridge freeware, Synching these into Sprint's PPC-6700 Pocket PC

I have just finished a three hour process of doing this and am now listening to my former iTunes music listings for iPod on my Pocket PC, so I know the process works:

Download and Install MusicBridge (Freeware): http://www.download.com/MusicBridge/3000-2141_4-10530688.html?tag=lst-0-1

1. Open up iTunes.

2. Click on Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Importing .

3. Change your "Import Using" drop-down to "MP3 Encoder".

4. Exit from your preferences and go to the main library view in iTunes. You may want to sort all of your music by "File Type".

5. Highlight all of your unprotected AAC files. (You can not convert or play songs you purchased from the iTunes Music Store because of a lock Apple is forced to put on the files called "FairPlay".)

6. Right-click, and select "Convert Selection to MP3".

7. It'll take awhile…be patient.

When all the files have converted to MP3 format: Close iTunes.

Music Bridge does not actually add songs to your Windows Media Player (WMP) library…it only synchs the metadata about those songs (song names, ratings, playlists, etc.) Before you use MB you need to actually add the song files from iTunes to your WMA Library. Following instructions are for WMP 11, but may work for WMP 10.

  1. Open WMP.
  2. Hit F3.
  3. You get an "add to library" drop down box with a list of folders that WMP is monitoring for new media files. If you don't see this list, click on "advanced Options" then click on ADD Navigate to the root folder holding your iTunes music files. This path will ususally be c:\My Documents\My music\itunes\itunes music.
  4. Click OK. WMP will scan the folder and all its subfolders and add those music files to your library. Any AAC files and music purchased from the iTunes Music Store will be skipped.
  5. When the import is finished exit WMP and open Music Bridge From the "Synch from iTunes" box chose "All Data" confirm this when asked: Do you really want to….."
  6. Watch and wait as your data is synced.
  7. When this is done open WMP and check to see that the files are indeed there.
  8. Next connect your PPC to its sync cradle and start the sync program (for MP3 players, just connect your MP3 player to the PC and turn it on.) It will look for the new files and load them onto your miniSD storage card (you must have this to load music files on because there is not enough internal memory in the PPC to hold the files. Strongly recommend the 2GB miniSD card. You must set up a sync relationship between WMP and your miniSD memory card. Just follow the instructions on your PPC to do this…its easy When the sync is completed open Windows Media on the PPC and touch "menu".
  9. Select: Library and hit menu again, select "Update Library"
  10. All your music files will be transferred onto the "Storage Card" in your PPC.
  11. To play music, now open WM in the PPC, go to Library, select Storage Card, select the album or artist or genre you want to play and hit play.
  12. It works!

Note:  Since I've written this, I've left Microsoft.  If you'd like to contact me directly with questions about this, please feel free to visit my website at http://whostheboss.net.