zen micro "playsforsure"

[ShadowVlican]

for those of you that own the zen micro, did you update your firmware to playsforsure? SHOULD i?

i like the convenience of drag drop in explorer... however anything with DRM scares me....

[NiMSo]

The drag & drop feature is not that great. (Yes, I've tried it )

The name "playforsure" is a bit of a misnomer. Essentially, it only works on WinXP systems with Media Player 10 installed. I had some trouble having it recognized on other systems.

Although it's compatibility isn't great, if you can get it to work then it's easier to add music files as opposed to using their crappy software. I just copied & pasted all my music files into the player in a single shot.

Note that this feature does NOT turn the player into a mass storage device. In fact, you can't even make folders or change the structure...


The only way to use the Zen Micro as a USB mass storage device is to use the separate storage feature (accessed through the 'extras' menu) to activate UMS mode (it will reserve a portion of your hard drive as storage space). Then it will be recognized as a storage device. BUT... that storage area is seperate from your music folder, thus you cannot change music files while in UMS mode, nor can you play music files stored in the UMS partition....

[ShadowVlican]

i can't believe i can't use this as a USB mass storage device well since you said the compatibility isn't that great, then i guess it's not worth upgrading to playsforsure.... i'll stick with the regular firmwares then

thanks for the info NiMSo

[NiMSo]

i can't believe i can't use this as a USB mass storage device well since you said the compatibility isn't that great, then i guess it's not worth upgrading to playsforsure.... i'll stick with the regular firmwares then

thanks for the info NiMSo

Well, you can use the device as a USB mass storage device... umm, sort of ... It's a separate feature that has to be enabled:

What you have to do is tell the device to parition the hard drive, thereby reserving some separate space for storage (this does not require any special firmware). E.g. I formatted 512MB for storage, thereby leaving me with ~4.5GB for music. This storage area can only be accessed by switching the player to the correct mode (disables music player while on).

The reason why it's separate is because the music section does not operate like regular folders on a computer (there's some reason for this, but I can't remember - it relates to the way the player operates). Therefore the music section is not designed to be compatible with 'drag & drop'.

[ShadowVlican]

OH. i see.... if only i'd knew this before i bought it

thanks again NiMSo