My solution is essentially the same. I don't use library server, instead I automatically update all the library files from master to playback PC nightly.
I always put MC's library and media files on the same drive letter and same folder on desktop and laptop. I also do this on my third MC computer: I use one for home ripping/editing/management, one for home playback, and a laptop for mobile listening.
Running MC on multiple PCs can be done in many ways. I do this:
Simplest is to have a second drive. Assign it a letter that Windows won't change when another drive or device (internal or external) gets connected "ahead" of it. I set up my desktop's second internal drive as "M:". A second drive is very simple to use, and also lets you choose a large drive, and get max performance. For my laptop, I use a portable USB drive and assign it the same letter as my desktop drive so MC uses it identically. (My portable drive is 500GB, soon to be 1TB -- I have a large music library.) Of course a disadvantage is the external drive is one more thing to lug around and connect/disconnect.
Or, if adding a drive isn't feasible on one computer, but you want MC to see the same drive letter, probably you can use the DOS SUBST command to assign a second letter to an existing drive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subst. Or you can assign a network path to a drive letter.
Once I have an identical drive letter on every computer, I tweak MC's various path settings to put every possible MC library file at the same location (drive\path), including the full library of songs, the cover art folder, the location of saved views, library design/custom fields, etc. (Note that in some areas of MC, the ability to choose a different path isn't obvious. You have to save something that can be saved, specify the new path, and then MC remembers it.)
A third way is to edit MC's database, after opening it on the "other" computer, using search/replace to change the stored drive letter/path of ALL the records. This is brute force editing of the entire library, and isn't necessary with my method.
I set the backup/sync software to copy the necessary folders from my master computer to the others. Since the drive letter and MC folders are identical on all my MC computers, it "just works".
One tip: My family room playback computer is updated nightly from the main library computer. To avoid users having to restart MC or reload the library to "see" the changes, I set MC on the playback computer to Auto Import from the main library folder (M:\music in my setup). This might seem unnecessary or even wrong, since all the music files are already in that folder, AND so is the database that was freshly updated the prior night. What running Auto Import seems to do is force MC to refresh its view of the database, triggered by any changed files, so I don't have to do it manually. So each morning, we simply select a playlist, click Play, and we're using the exact everything as it was on the master computer as of the night before -- new tracks, changed tracks, database edits, cover art changes, new/changed playlists, revised views, etc.
To copy all the files from master library PC to the others, I use SyncBackSE, because it is smart about copying only what is changed, and can be run on a schedule (nightly in my case), etc. But any number of other backup/sync programs can do the same.
One notable difference between this and using MC's server mode is that it is strictly one-way. Users can do whatever they want to the playback computer's library, but those changes never affect the master library on the main computer. I think this is a benefit, but in some cases it might be annoying.
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Topic: How to deal with MC on two PC's (Read 2253 times)