Library problems with two XP user accounts accessing music in shared folder

Question

I'm sorry if this has already been answered; I have not been able to find the answer. My wife and I each have a different user account on the same Windows XP machine. I recently combined our iTunes libraries into the shared folder on the computer. I correctly pointed iTunes (in each of our accounts) to the correct location for the music files. I did an "Add Folder to Library" to make sure each account had all of the music. When I did this, I got duplicate listings of all of the songs that also had exclamation points. When I did a "Get Info" on these songs, I found that each song was correctly pointed to the correct file location. I laboriously deleted each "exclamation point" song one at a time (in each account). Now the problem I have is that whenever my wife or I close iTunes and the other person opens iTunes in their XP user account, none of the songs can be found. The best way I've been able to resolve this is to (unfortunately) delete the entire library, and do an "Add Folder To Library" to find all of the song locations and include all of the songs back into the library. Surely this can't be how this is supposed to work.
So, my questions are:
- Do I need to add new albums / songs one at a time to avoid duplicates (rather than use the "Add Folder" for the entire iTunes music folder again)?
- How do I setup iTunes so that my wife and I can each go into iTunes in our seperate XP accounts and have all of our songs right where we left them (WITHOUT having to delete the entire libary and "add" again.)
FYI: I'm using the latest version of iTunes and (again) I'm using Windows XP.
My wife and I really want to each get a new iPod Nano, but if I can't trust iTunes... forget it.
THANKS!!!

Answer 1

I have this setup at working. Two accounts with all files stored on a shared folder, mine is a network drive. Each account has its own library and can access all files. We also use one iTunes account for rare purchases.
This is how did initial setup:
Make a folder in the shared folder. I called mine itunes.
This is where iTunes stores its files.
With second account point iTunes at shared folder.
Import the folder you created earlier.
This worked for me without duplications. The only complication is that when importing from CD with one account the other doesn't know it. The other account must do import on the folder for the CD just imported. We keep track of this with a spreadsheet updated to show which account has which CD files.