Scheduling the downloads of iTunes purchases?

Question

I have the joy (not) of having satellite internet, with download restrictions. I can, however, use a download manager to defer files until the "unrestricted download time" in the wee hours of the morning. Is it possible to schedule my iTunes downloads for then? It seems when you click on "buy Song" it just immediately purchases and downloads.

Answer 1

I'm in the same boat as you --- HughesNet. My short answer is that you *used to* be able to do this, but in recent versions of iTunes something changed, and now you can't anymore. Continue reading to see how I did this in older versions of iTunes...or you can quit reading and instead curse Apple like I do since now I have to download an album over the course of 2 or 3 days to avoid hitting my "Fair Access Policy" limit of 200MB.
A few versions of iTunes ago, you could accomplish this using Scheduled Tasks in Windows. I'm currently running iTunes version 9.0.2.25, and my method doesn't work anymore.
But, in older versions (maybe you haven't upgraded yet?), here's what you could do (maybe someone will find a similar way to do this with recent versions...please???). It worked because when iTunes opened, it would automatically try to connect and download anything that needed to be downloaded (which isn't the case anymore).
What you do is use Windows Scheduled Tasks to launch iTunes, say, every morning at 3AM. You only need to create the Scheduled Task once.
After you created the Scheduled Task, you'd purchase your iTunes items as usual. Then on the Downloads page, click the Pause All button to pause all the downloads. Then close iTunes. At 3AM the next morning, your Scheduled Task will automatically open iTunes, and iTunes would start downloading.
Alas, this doesn't seem to work anymore because it seems iTunes refuses to automatically check for downloads and get them, or it forces you to re-enter your password. I've messed with various settings, but can't get it to work.
Message was edited by: scarybinary