The new Microsoft Zune player arrived on the market yesterday. I don’t have the new Zune player, but just out of interest, I wanted to install the Zune software to see how it compared with something like iTunes.
I didn’t get on very well. First of all, it’s a bit hit and miss whether you can find the download on the zune.net website. This might be intentional at first to limit the stress on the first day of the Zune. Once I found the download link (by chance), I downloaded and started to install.
The install took a long, long time. The first thing it did was check for application updates. The install software hung a little (even though I have a 8Mb DSL connection at home), again I put it down to first day overloads. Once the software installed, I had to reboot (annoying) – then once I signed in again, the install package started to scan my PC for songs.
I have around 8000 songs on my PC, so this was going to take some time. 1%, 2%, 3%… After one watching of the Daily Show on Comedy Central and two bottles of Amstel, the application hung on 86%. So, I skipped this search to start using the application.
Zune started up. I then thought I’d like to create a profile. Zune needs you to have a Windows Live account (which I have), I signed on – denied. I realised after a while that I hadn’t changed my Windows Passport profile in years (it was still set to the UK) – I signed into Passport and changed my details to show I was a US resident. Tried to sign in again, no such luck – denied once again.
I couldn’t use the application, it killed my PC and it was at that moment I removed Zune from my PC.
There’s an excellent first review of Zune at Engadget:
http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/15/zune-review/
