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[MissThing]

HI,

I'm a newbie here and my CReative Zen micro is being delivered any day now!

what I want to ask is...how can I connect my micro so that explorer recognizes it as a another drive? is there any firmware to do this, or does anyone rate Notmad? I've seen this suggested on reviews. I have win98SE btw!

The other thing that I cant find by googling is... what playlist formats does the micro use? can it read m3u files or do you have to set them up on the device?

I'm just wondering because I'l like to get all my music in order before I start transferring files.

Will the player transfer stuff in folders or will it all go in one big list? Just so I know whether to update the ID3 tags in the meantime. I reckon I'll max out the 5GB by the time I've copied all my CDs!

Thanks,

Miss Thing

[dduvall]

HI,

I'm a newbie here and my CReative Zen micro is being delivered any day now!

I've had my Zen Micro for about a month now and love it.

what I want to ask is...how can I connect my micro so that explorer recognizes it as a another drive? is there any firmware to do this, or does anyone rate Notmad? I've seen this suggested on reviews. I have win98SE btw!

The Micro comes with it's own software "Zen Media Explorer". It is not natively seen as a removable drive by Windows Explorer.

But, with the excellent handheld support in MC11 and the tools it includes for managing your device & library, you don't need it.  I've removed Zen Media Explorer from my machine.

 
The other thing that I cant find by googling is... what playlist formats does the micro use? can it read m3u files or do you have to set them up on the device?

I'm just wondering because I'l like to get all my music in order before I start transferring files.

You can setup playlists on the Micro, but I find it somewhat tedious.  I build my playlists & smartlists (rules based playlists) inside of MC11 and then Synch them with the Micro.  The playlists themselves are added to the Micro along with any tracks (not already there) needed to support them.

Will the player transfer stuff in folders or will it all go in one big list? Just so I know whether to update the ID3 tags in the meantime. I reckon I'll max out the 5GB by the time I've copied all my CDs!

I believe they go in one list.  I'm at work and don't have it in front of me, but the Micro presents your tracks by <Title>, <Genre> - <Artist> and a couple of other pre-defined orders.  The playlists are under a separate section and listed alpabetically.

Thanks,

Miss Thing

You're welcome ... hope that helps!  There's a number of posters at http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?board.id=dap who have had different problems with the latest version of the Micro's firmware.  I'm personally holding off updating until I see how the next release does.

[MissThing]

Thanks for all the info. I found the creative labs forum about an hour ago so I lurked there for a bit of info.

I think I'll test run MC11 when I get my new player. Till then, I have to tidy my ID tags, lol!

[SteveG]

dduvall,

Thanks for taking the time to post such detailed and accurate info.

Steve

[MissThing]

one last question...should I install the firmware before downloading the media centre program?

[dduvall]

MissThing,

The Micro comes pre-loaded with its firmware.  The only question is what version it will have.

If it's 1.something, based on the feedback on the Creative forums, I personally would just stay with that and not upgrade to 2.xx.  That is what I have chosen to do at this point.

If it has 2.xx, I'd give it a go and see if you have any issues (not everyone does).  If you find yourself fighting any of the things described in the Creative Micro discussions, there's several posts describing how to downgrade the firmware, which should resolve them for you.

When you say "... before downloading the media center program" .... if you mean the main program, I'd highly suggest downloading it now and becoming familiar with its features and getting your library looking the way you want.

If you mean downloading the plugin for the Micro, MC11 will auto-detect the Micro when it is plugged in and auto-download the appropriate plugin, which is used in managing the device thru MC.

David

[MissThing]

Thanks for clearing that up. You're right, I do have to tidy my library anyway. The only thing is I havent used the micro yet, I just switched it on and the buttons were quite tricky to work with. I'd heard the firmware sorts this so the'at why I was wondering.

(Then again I have set the sensitvity yet, so I'd better do that first)