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[JimH]

In 12.0.090, tonight's build, there is this change:

14. NEW: When opening a Media Center library that's already in use by another computer, a read-only version will be opened. (each user computer will have its own thumbnail cache, like with Library Server)

The first user will have read-write access.  After that, new users will receive a message telling them that they will have read-only access.

Media Server/Library Server sharing is unchanged.

[darichman]

Jim! (or anyone!)

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you do this without using library server? I'm very new to networking ~ have always done everything from my single PC.

I've just got a new laptop and have been experimenting with sharing my music across the home network.

[lOth]

correct me if I'm wrong, but if the second user opens the library as read only, playcounts won't be updated from there, right? This would be one important difference (at least for me) with using library server instead.

[Alex B]

This is great news. I'll experiment with it during the coming weekend.

[Matt]

correct me if I'm wrong, but if the second user opens the library as read only, playcounts won't be updated from there, right? This would be one important difference (at least for me) with using library server instead.

Correct.  The library now works just like a word document.

The first person in gets read/write.  The next people in get read-only.

[rpalmer68]

Jim! (or anyone!)

Excuse my ignorance, but how do you do this without using library server? I'm very new to networking ~ have always done everything from my single PC.

I've just got a new laptop and have been experimenting with sharing my music across the home network.

Basically have your Library and shared media files all in a shared folder on your main MC machine and make sure every other "client"machine has the same drive letter as your main MC machine mapped to the same location.

I use X: drive, so my library is in X:\library, and my music is in X:\music\.  Which is really c:\shared_music\library and  c:\shared_music\music, but obviously c: is different on every machine and hence you map another drive letter ALL machine can use.


So every machine (including the main MC machine) has an X: drive which points to the shared folder.

Map the drive through windows explorer (Tools\Map Network Drive).

Hope this helped!

Richard

[glynor]

Correct.  The library now works just like a word document.

The first person in gets read/write.  The next people in get read-only.

Any improvement on the "pauses" issue (discussed here) I've seen before when the library is on a network drive?

If so, this could come in handy for some of my "peripheral" machines, but I'll probably keep using my scripted method generally...

[johnp]

This is a great feature.  Thank you very much for adding this!

A few questions.  Is there a possibility for a user to grab the database and become the master after the fact or does everyone have to quit MC and start over?

Can you designate a machine / client to be read only all the time and thus avoid the pop up message?  Perhaps we could disable the pop up message altogether?  I am thinking of an automated application here where a client PC is unattended / headless and a pop up message at boot time might be an issue.

I will playing with this for sure.

Thanks again.

[runemail]

I havent been able to get this to work and would like some help troubleshooting...

I share the library on the workstation and try to use it in the HTPC. I get the read only warning, and it "pauses" for about 30 secs. But the library is empty when MC starts responding again.

I use the same mapped network drive from the win2003 server on all my machines. And it works just fine when I backup from workstation and import the library on HTPC.

Im thinking that maybe MC12 have a problem with my software raid on the server since OTTO is not importing new files and I have to manually run auto-import every time to add new files on worstation?

This is a brand new library created in MC12 (not imported from mc11.1) since I am doing a major cleanup anyway.

Running 12.0.90 on both machines. And several restarts of MC on both.

[raym]

Is there a possibility for a user to grab the database and become the master after the fact or does everyone have to quit MC and start over?

Yeah, I'm curious about this as well...

[skeeterfood]

I got it to work at home last night.

On my main machine named Corona, I have a local drive E: shared as "Data E" with the rest of my machines.

On that drive I have the following layout:
E:\Audio
E:\Audio\Albums (Subdirs for artists and albums below this)
E:\Audio\Audible
E:\Audio\Podcasts
...

First I created a new directory to hold the shared library at E:\Audio\Library.

Then, I created a new mapped drive called M: and mapped it to \\Corona\Data E\Audio (bet you never tried mapping a drive network drive to a local drive before ).

Next, I opened MC and created a new library named Shared, cloning it from my default MC library, and saved it to M:\Library.

Finally, I opened the new Shared library, clicked on Audio, selected all files, and did a "Find and Replace..." of E:\Audio\Albums with M:\Albums in the Filename (path) field.  Repeated for other directories under M:...

On my HTPC which is aptly named HTPC:
First, I created a new mapped drive called M: and mapped it to \\Corona\Data E\Audio. (sound familiar?)

Next, I started up MC and created a new library called Shared (no cloning) and saved it to M:\Library. (again sounds familiar doesn't it?)

Finally, I opened the new library, got the read-only warning, clicked OK, then started playing songs.

Now all it needs is a way to configure what fields can be modified from the clients (rating, playcounts, ...), instead of completely read-only, and it will be perfect!

[Alex B]

Then, I created a new mapped drive called M: and mapped it to \\Corona\Data E\Audio (bet you never tried mapping a drive network drive to a local drive before ).

A "subst" command can do effectively the same without the need to transfer data through the network drivers.

I have had this kind of bat file in my server's startup folder for a couple of years:

subst.bat

Code: [Select]

SUBST X: D:\Mus
SUBST Y: E:\Vid
SUBST Z: C:\Rip


I have imported the media library from the virtual X:, Y: and Z: drives. On other PCs I have mapped the same drive letters with shared network paths (naturally I have shared the D:\Mus\, E:\Vid\ and C:\Rip\ base folders on the server).

Until now I have used a local copy of the main library on the other PCs. I look forward to testing this new option during the weekend.

[InflatableMouse]

A "subst" command can do effectively the same without the need to transfer data through the network drivers.

You must be old. 

The last time I used subst was back in the stone age when DOS ruled on PC's. Just tried it out and guess what? It still works! HA!

[/me gets all warm 'n fuzzy about the good old times]

Hehehe ... 

[Alex B]

[off topic]

Not so old.

I got my first PC in 1989. It was actually build from separate components like my every desktop since then. A more experienced friend helped me. My first programs were indeed MS DOS 5.0 and MS Word for DOS 5.0, but Windows 2.1 and Excel "something" for Windows came soon after that.

On second thought, perhaps I'm becoming a bit old...

[/off topic]

[glynor]

You must be old. 

Hey... Watch it.  Some of us just turned officially "not young" and are a little touchy about it.   

 

[skeeterfood]

A "subst" command can do effectively the same without the need to transfer data through the network drivers.

I have had this kind of bat file in my server's startup folder for a couple of years:

subst.bat

Code: [Select]

SUBST X: D:\Mus
SUBST Y: E:\Vid
SUBST Z: C:\Rip


Thanks!  That's a "new" trick to me...

-John

[Alex B]

Code: [Select]

SUBST X: D:\Mus
SUBST Y: E:\Vid
SUBST Z: C:\Rip


If you try something like this keep in mind that the "last empty line" is included intentionally. Each command line in a bat file needs an enter after it.