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[ebisudave]

I am currently running Media Center 9.1.319 on Windows XP.
I have a Palm Tungsten E which I would like to be able to download playlists to, directly from Media Center.

I went to the "Plug-In Manager..." and selected "Hand Held". Following the instructions there, I clicked on the link to download the appropriate plug in from the Media Center web site.

However, after downloading the "PDA" plug in, I got the following error:

Failed to install package.
More Info: Failed to register object.
C:\Apps\Media Center\Plugins\hh_pda.dll
URL: http://accessories.musicex.com/mediacenter/mc_data/plugins/hh_pda.zip

I attempted to manually loacate and install the dll from the hard drive, by clicking the "Add Plug In" button in the "Hand Held" dialogue box, but got an error simly saying "Failed to register plug-in".

What is going wrong?

Dave G

[bjsolem]

I don't  know the details on the pda plugin, but here's some advice on using your palm for music.

On the palm, music files HAVE to be stored on the memory card, they cannot be played from the internal memory.

Sending large files to the memory card through the palm sync cradle is Extremely slow.  You are much better off to take your memory card out of your palm and put it in a card reader.  Transferring files will be at least 10 times faster, maybe much more.

This is important because when you connect your card using a memory card reader, it will show up as an external drive, your palm will have nothing to do with it, so the PDA plugin is no longer important.

Now that you have it as an external drive you can copy tunes to it using mc 9.  I believe that mc 10 will treat it as a handheld player and you can use some new sync options.

When I did this with my Palm, I never messed with actually putting the playlist on the palm.  I just used a smartlist to generate a list of tunes for me and copied them to my palm card.  I believe that you can save the smartlists out of mc 9 as a .m3u file which can then be copied to your palm as a playlist.

My important message to you is that you will be MUCH happier transferring files directly to the memory card and not trying to get MC to recognize your palm.

[SteveG]

bjsolem,

Thanks for the excellent advice.

ebisudave,

If you are still going to use the PDA plugin for MC 9, I tested the download for the 9.1 plugin and it installed here. Are you sure you are downloading the plugin for 9.1 and not 9.0? Here is the link to where you should go....

http://accessories.musicex.com/mediacenter/accessories.php

Steve

[ebisudave]

bjsolem,
Following your advice, I've purchased a card reader and I'm copying music files that way. As you say, this is considerably faster than going via the PDA itself.
However, I'm confused by how best to use the interface. The card reader shows up as a seperate drive on the computer. When I drag and drop music files to the card within Media Center, it doesn't *copy* the file, it *moves* it. I've already accidentally deleted one music file, thinking that I was just removing a copy of it from the card.
How do I go about having Media Center copy songs to the card without it moving the song file out of it's location on my hard drive?

Steve G,
I am definite that I am using the correct file for Media Center 9.1. But it will not install. However, now that I am going the route of the card reader, I guess it's not worth trying to discover why it's not working. But I do appreciate your help!

Dave G

[bjsolem]

I did that a few times myself.  Sorry I didn't warn you.....

I'm not at my home pc so I'm not going to say things exactly right.  

If you transfer to your memory card by selecting the songs you want, right clicking and selecting Move/Copy from library tools you simply use Copy instead of move after selecting the folder on your memory card that you want the tunes in.

In MC 10 you can have MC treat your memory card as handheld player and it will sync the tunes/playlists etc. without losing anything off your main drive.

They should put a warning message popup on that move button, sometimes we end-users just get too click happy....    

[ebisudave]

bjsolem,

I think I see how this works. It seems to be crucial where you move the files to - the card reader shows up as both a physical drive and also as removable media. If you drag a file to the folder under "my computer", it will move the file. If you drag a file to the folder under "CD, DVD, and Handhelds", then it queues the file for later copying.
Not exactly an intuitive interface, but it does the job.
Thanks for encouraging me to get the card reader. This is definitely a faster and easier process than synching songs through the Palm's hot sync operation.

I guess we can put this issue into the "solved" category now.

Thanks for all your help!

Dave G