Shared "libraries"/mltple computers wireless networked to shared hard drive

Question

I really spent some time researching this question prior to posting. My goal is to have three computers (mine, wife's,kid's) all accessing a single hard drive on which all of our combined music is stored with iTunes on each computer seeing our whole library of music, then all of us can create playlists, sync to varous nano's, shuffles, etc. Hard drive is all set up, wireless access is set, all three computers can access various other shared files on the hard drive. All three computers have been "mapped" so that they look at this new Z drive, so I went through Edit/Pref/Advanced/General and changed each computer to look at this new Z drive versus their own C: drive/Music folder etc. Then I went through Advanced, Consolidate on one computer to put all of our music that used to be on one individual computer's hard drive and successfully moved it out to the new shared, wirelessly accessable Z drive.
Now, I want to be able to add new songs to that Z drive, ideally from any individual computer and have all other computers "see" those new songs that are now out on the Z drive. I have gone around the house and tested adding via CD's new songs from each computer to the new shared Z drive and that works. However, each of the individual iTunes libraries do not see the new songs.....is there some way that each computer's iTunes could update itself so that it recognizes that there are new songs out on the shared hard drive??? If so, I can't seem to figure out how to make it work.
Also, on Edit/Preferences/Sharing...I have selected and checked "Look for shared libraries" and also selected/checked "share my library on local network"....and selected/checked "share entire library"....and I have done this on each indvidual computer, but I am not sure if those are the right selections/checks to achieve my goals. Is this what I should do on each computer?? In the blank "Shared name:" I typed "iTunesShared" which is the name of the file that I created on the shared hard drive and I did this on each computer in each individual iTunes program. Is this what I should be doing??
Finally, on one of the computers (the computer that I have been currently using to add CD's to our shared hard drive) under Library, on the left hand column...there is a heading called "Shared" and under that heading it lists two subheadings - one called "Owners's music" and the other called "Susan's music" - and those seem to turn off and on if I have one of the other two computers logged on and its iTunes program launched. If I go to one of the other computers and shut down iTunes on it, one of those subheadings will disappear. Also, with iTunes launched on the two other computers - I see under the "Shared" heading the "iTunesShared" heading and if I click on it, iTunes is then looking at the Z drive with all of the our songs stored on it....but the other two computers can only see this file if the computer that I have been downloading songs from is launched....i.e., the only way all three computers can see the Z drive with our full song library on it is if just one of the other computers is up, running and has iTunes launched.
Again, my goal here is to have all three computers iTunes be looking at the Z drive so that they would have access to our full library of songs...so, any ideas how I can make that happen or what I have done wrong here?? I think I am closing to figuring this out but am now stuck. Any advice or guidance would be much appreciated.
thanks,
CAS
Also,
Dell Latitude D420   Windows XP  

Answer 1

Seems like you have things set up right. You may be disappointed though.
Each account on each computer is separate as far as libraries go. Even if all are set to save to the same location, like yours, the different libraries do not see each other. The library files for each user are basically just shortcuts to where the tracks are, so even if 5 users add the file to their own library there will be media file.
What this means is that adding files with one, the others will not know it. There is no setting available to change this behavior. Each user must add the files to their own library using the 'add folder' or 'add file' options.
Is that everything? You had a big post.