Sharing iTunes on one machine with multiple users... problems...

Hi, I've recently done a fresh installation of XP, and have downloaded iTunes 7.1
It's set up as follows:
1 machine, 3 users:
Administrator(Admin account) ; Me (limited) ; My partner (limited).
I have set up the itunes folder in the shared documents as suggested in the apple KB article about multiple users on one machine.
As administrator, I imported a CD and it's artwork from the store.
Pointed all three users to the folder in the shared documents - exactly as per the KB article.
I went into my everyday account, and pointed itunes to the itunes folder in the shared documents.
it didn't see the tracks. I had to use the add folder to library in the file menu in order to get itunes to see it.
is this just something that has to be accepted, or is there a way of making the folder 'live' so that i don't need to keep updating my library manually? - almost like a refresh?..

Unfortunaely iTunes doesn't monitor for new files, so if you import a CD in one account, it will have to be added to the libraries of the other accounts manually - if the users want it.
I guess this is both good and bad as it means that each account can have its own music choices while at the same time sharing a common pool of music files.

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Sharing iTunes on one PC with 2 users (not a server or laptop)

I have two sons with iPods, and would like to know how to share iTunes between the two of them, so that they could have separate sections for their own musical selections. Also, is it possible to somehow partition the account so that they could each track their own giftcard expenditures?
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There's a couple ways to do this.
Using Multiple iPods With One Computer
I disagree with the article; I think Method 2 is simplest.
And they would each need an AppleId of their own to track their own giftcards.

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ITunes library on one computer with multiple users

Mom, Dad, and kids each have their own log-in to this computer. Mom is the main administrator and when we downloaded all the CDs to iTunes, it went to Mom's iTunes Library. Dad has logged in under his name and purchased items from iTunes store which are now in his library. We now have 2 separate iTunes Libraries. How can we make the iTunes library the same for both Mom and Dad?
Dad just got iPhone and wants to be able to sync his apps to his computer login as well as having access to Mom's iTunes library - it would seem to me that the easiest way to do this is to copy the library from Mom to Dad or somehow be able to have Dad share the itunes library. Can't figure out how to do this. Any help would be appreciated.

To share an iTunes library among multiple users, put the iTunes library in /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes, and for each user, make an alias from ~/Music/iTunes to /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes. Set permissions on /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes (and everything inside it) to give each user read and write permissions, and you're all set. My wife have been sharing our iTunes library this way since 2005, without a hitch.
Also, you'll have to import the contents of one library into the other, to make one big library, which is an extra step, but there's no way to avoid this now that you have two libraries.
Here are step by step instructions:
1. Figure out which library is larger, and start with that one. I'm going to guess it's Mom's. Log in as Mom.
2. In the Finder, make a folder called /Users/Shared/Music.
3. Move the folder ~/Music/iTunes (that's your iTunes library) to /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes.
4. Select the folder /Users/Shared/Music/iTunes, and make an alias of that folder. (In the Finder, click on File->Make Alias.) The alias will be called "/Users/Shared/Music/iTunes alias".
5. Move "/Users/Shared/Music/iTunes alias" to "~/Music/iTunes alias". Rename the alias to ~/Music/iTunes.
6. At this point, check your work: start iTunes while still logged in as Mom. Mom should see her iTunes library, just as before, as if it had never been moved.
7. While still logged in as Mom, go to /Users/Shared, select the Music folder, and give Mom and Dad read and write permissions on that folder and all its contents.
8. Log out as Mom, and log in as Dad. In the Finder, move Dad's iTunes library from ~/Music/iTunes to the Desktop.
9. As Dad, repeat steps 4 and 5.
10. Now Dad should check his work, by starting iTunes. Dad should now see Mom's library instead of his own.
Congratulations! You now have a shared library. You not only share content, but all playlists, artwork, etc. As Dad, create a playlist, fill it with romantic music, and call the playlist "To My Beautiful Wife". Log out as Dad, and log in as Mom, and Mom will see the same playlist. Crack open a bottle of champagne.
But Dad's content is still in ~/Desktop/iTunes. You'll have to add it to your shared libary:
11. Log in as Dad, and in iTunes, turn on the preference iTunes->Preferences->Advanced->Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.
12. Still in iTunes, choose File->Add to Library and start adding all the files in ~/Desktop/iTunes. They'll be copied from Dad's desktop into the shared library. Try importing a couple of tracks, and log in as Mom and confirm that both Mom and Dad see the imported content. (I myself have never done this, so I can't give you much guidance about importing, since I started our iTunes library as a single shared library from the very beginning. For all you know, you can just select every folder in ~/Desktop/iTunes and import everything at once. I would imagine you might have to futz around re-organizing everything nicely once you've imported all Dad's stuff, but once that's done, it's done.) Once everything is imported you can trash ~/Desktop/iTunes.
That's it. Any content you add will be instantly available to both users without having to sync or copy anything ever, because both users are always looking at the same library. (If one user deletes something it's gone for both users too, so be careful!) The only trouble you could possibly have are permissions issues, depending on how your system and users are set up. On my computer, after setting it up once, we never had to think about it again. However, we set up a separate account to be the administrator, and neither my wife or I have admin privileges. Since Mom is an administrator and Dad is not, you might find that OS X treats you differently when you create new files in your library. You'll have to try it and see. Good luck!
Message was edited by: dgauthier

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That's what group policies are for...
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Howdy,
I have been playing a while to get itunes library share working. I know it is supposed to be done with home sharing. But I don't like it.
My library is on a NAS (synology). I connect with NFS mount. There are 2 users on my mac.
When I open en close the libary from user account 1, then the permissions and owner rights of the library file are changed by iTunes. They are changed to 501 (user) and 20 (group). Permissions are only r/w to this user/group.
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My daughter just got a new ipod for Christmas, and she has her own login on our family computer using Vista. So she has her own folders for documents, pictures, etc. I installed iTunes under her login thinking that it would pull songs from her the folders in her account, and allow her to log into her iTunes account. It pulled every song on the computer into iTunes. When I plug in her ipod I have an option of syncing it and pulling every song on to it. Bad user experience.
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Hello David Macintyre, Welcome to discussions.
If your daughter has a majority of iTunes Store purchased content on her iPod. She can transfer all these purchases back into iTunes via the following informational link below.
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I've been pondering some of what zones can do, and it occurred to me that one could build an entire reasonably secure environment using one machine with multiple zones...
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Thoughts/Comments?

I've been pondering some of what zones can do, and it
occurred to me that one could build an entire
reasonably secure environment using one machine with
multiple zones...
* Global zone with no network ports active,
ve, console only
* One zone for firewall, heavily ipf'd - mapped to
to external and internal network ports
* One zone for webserver - mapped to internal
nal network port
* One zone for fileserver - mapped to internal
nal network port
* Other zones as needed - probably all mapped to
to internal network ports
* All zones secured with ipf to allow very little
tle access, particularly from firewall zone
It seems like this would allow a very flexible
environment, and would give the security of having
multiple boxes.
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There is a new paradigm in town and it's name is Zones. Use zones and use them often. This is a no lose proposition.
Happy zoning.
Thanks,
Jarod

Sharing iTunes on a single computer with multiple users

Greetings,
I have been troubleshooting a problem sharing iTunes on a single computer with multiple users that cropped up a few weeks ago and have not had very good luck.
Several months ago I successfully set up my wife’s G4 Laptop (PowerPC processor) so that we could share iTunes on that computer. I had just gotten her an “My Book” external hard drive (Western Digital). The iTunes Library will go on this new unit because the internal drive was running out of room. I successfully set the privileges, moved the entire library onto a “Share” directory and everything worked fine.
In this way, when I got a new CD I could add it to iTunes (under my login, administrator privileges) and she could access it (under her login) to listen to while working on the computer or using her iPod. This arrangement went well for quite awhile.
About a month and a half ago, when I tried to launch iTunes from my login I received this message:
“The iTunes Library file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file.”
I think the permissions must have changed when there was an update because my wife is pretty careful about what she does on her computer. Updates were the only thing I could think of that had changed since I had set her computer up. I also noticed that some of the iTunes defaults were different from the last time I had used it to add a CD.
So, I did some reading and went back through the motions of trying to set it up again. I re-formatted the My Book hard drive to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) added the files back to the external, reset permissions on the external hard drive. (Owners: System, Access: read and write - Group: wheel, Access: read and write – Others: read and write).
When I now launch iTunes under my login I get this message:
“The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items.”
What gives? I am the original owner and have always had top-level privileges.
Can someone point me to any articles or clues as to how I need to set-up iTunes on a single computer to be shared by more than one user? Also, I am considering upgrading to the newer system in a few weeks, so if a solution for OS X 10.5 is available, that would work too.
Tim

Was your wife logged into the libray at the time you tried to log in? I have had a similar problem and it was because another user was logged into the library when I attempted to. I got the permission denied banner.

In trying to share music with multiple user accounts on one comp, I quit itunes, located my itunes media folder, moved it to a publicly accessible location. Problem is it didn't work and now I can't get it all back to the way it was.

In trying to share music with multiple users on one computer, I followed the directions on "iTunes:How to share music between different accounts on a single computer" (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1203). I did something wrong because i lost iTunes
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If you are seeing the "Connect to iTunes" logo, then your device is in Recovery Mode, and you will need to restore it:
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Forgot to mention, have 2 iphones and 1 ipad as well, all attached to the same apple id.

See these support documents:
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New Mac User: iTunes Auth with multiple user accounts

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So then I assume that iTunes will know then if each of the computer's user accounts has a different iTunes account?
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Sharing iTunes on one machine with multiple users... problems...

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