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Windows Phone 8 Tip: PC Sync

Oct. 30, 2012 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

If you’re familiar with how Windows Phone 7.x syncs with the PC, you’re about to get a major upgrade: Windows Phone 8 now syncs to the PC through a much simpler Metro-style app or desktop application. And if you’re using Windows 8 on the PC desktop, you can choose between the two or mix and match.

Previous versions of Windows Phone utilized the Zune PC software—retroactively renamed to Zune Music + Videos to match the on-device software—for PC sync. And indeed, those with Windows Phone 7.x devices will continue to use Zune for PC sync as the new software is not compatible with the previous generation handsets.

Windows Phone app for Windows 8

Those with Windows 8 can utilize the new Metro-style Windows Phone app to sync their Windows Phone 8 handset. This simple app provides a full-screen interface with content sections such as On your phone, In the Store, and On the web.

wpapp-hero

In day to day use, the first section will be the most interesting. Here, you will find clickable regions representing the photos, music, and videos on your device plus tiles for adding photos, video, or music to the device.

The Photos view lets you browse through the albums on the device. As you navigate into particular albums, you’ll see tiles representing each photo.

photos

To view an individual photo, just select it.

photo

You can of course select albums or photos, download them to the PC, delete them, and change the sorting on the various views as well.

The Music and Videos views work similarly, with the same sorts of options.

music

Be sure to check out the app Settings, from which you can name the currently-connected phone (which is also configured at first connection) and determine how the device interacts with the software when connected.

settings

Windows Phone desktop application

Where the Windows 8 app is aimed at forward-leaning users who have hopefully adopted the full Microsoft media stack, the desktop version of the application is for upgraders, those with existing Windows 7 PCs or upgraded Windows 8 PCs that wish to remain in the desktop and perhaps have mature iTunes media libraries.

desktop

And really, that’s the big feature here: The desktop application lets you sync your iTunes-based music (including playlists), photos, videos, podcasts, and ringtones to a Windows Phone 8 device.

Note: There’s a version of the desktop application for Mac as well. This replaces the old Mac Connector software.

Discuss this Article 18

Bacchus1976
on Nov 11, 2012

Paul, you should be ashamed of yourself with this one. In your first sentence you call this situation a "major upgrade". You can't, in all seriousness, believe this.

The new syncing situation is this with WP8.

1) You cannot sync over WiFi. WP7/Zune users enjoyed this feature from day one of the release. Even Zune 8 and Zune HD users had this ability. In Windows Phone 8, on both Win7 and Win8, you now are restricted to a wired sync.

2) You cannot sync Podcasts at all. The Windows Phone App on both Win8 and Win7 does not support podcasts. The only podcast support is via OTA updates on WP8 and they do not sync at all. You wrote a column yourself on this topic recommending iTunes of all things to work around this.

3) You cannot sync playlists to WP8 from Xbox Music. There seems to be a bug in the WP App that doesn't recognize Playlists in Xbox Music. There is no way that I can find to create a playlist in the WP App.

4) WP8 uses different DRM than Zune making downloaded content incompatible.

5) WP8 supports fewer file formats than WP7 and there is no feature to convert content when syncing.

These are just a few of the biggest and most obvious issues. XBox Music loses a lot of the functionality that existed in Zune Music meaning that many of the Syncing features that depended on them are gone, specifically the concept of Dynamic playlists and auto-fill. The file browser in the WP App is really terrible and without filtering it's really painful to get through music catalogs that are thousands of songs long. Organizing photos is no better.

The PC syncing situation with WP8 is nothing short of a disaster.

pthurrott
on Nov 11, 2012

I should be ... ashamed?

That's more than a bit harsh. Windows Phone 8 PC sync has evolved with the times. I think it's much nicer this time around, but whatever. This article simply describes the new stuff. No need to make it personal.

Veer Maharaj
on Dec 8, 2012

Paul, i gotta agree with this guy to a point. I love your work and have been following you since i discovered your work when the Windows Weekly podcast started years ago.

But for me what sucks the most is that something that worked perfectly since the original Zune 30's first major firmware update right up to WP7 was gotten rid off and replaced by something that is very broken.

I'm sure you know of all the various media protocols all these devices use. Back in the day Msoft started something called playforsure. It was a simple thing that let people go into stores buy any device with a pfs logo on it, take it home and be guranteed wmp could put music on it.

With the Zune they simply revised it specifically for the Zunes and kept it closed. Would it have been so hard to simply change the logo on the existing Zune software to xbox sync, work out the compatibility, remove the marketplace functionality and make it a MTP or optional Zune sync software based on the device plugged in?

Right now im having a really hard time finding a Podcast manager that does Audio and Video playback and sync and remembers position of said podcasts. In all honesty Paul, aside from zune and itunes, it does not exist which i find shocking. Even trusty old Winamp with it's surprisingly comprehensive video playback cant do what Zune does in terms of sync. (Yes It is shocking)

PS listened to WinWeekly and i heard your bit on the whole downloading to PC, micromanaging media and syncing and I completely understand where ur coming from, but where there is no pervasive internet and where Msoft's store isn't completely supported music and videos right to the phone is hard much moreso OTA podcasts.

Its easier with my setup which is my main work machine, i leave it on in a low power mode all the time and have it double as a server and work machine. When i come (came) home all my podcasts would be downloaded already, my torrent rss feeds as well and when I put my phone to charge, it would all wirelessly sync.

When i go back to my PC to get some last minute work done, i could continue to listen to WinWeekly from where i left off in the car with no problems over my nice speakers and so on.

Even music, just knowing that the new awesome playlist i put together, would automatically sync when i plugged in my phone to charge would "just be there" when i was read to go in the car was a huge deal.

Now i would need to remember to hit the sync button in Windows Media Player when i plug my phone into my PC. It wouldn't have been so distasteful if WMP at least had podcast support at the least :( I could live with hitting the sync button when i plugged my phone in. Even my 40 USD Sandisk Sansa Clip+ does podcast support (audio only) over mtp...

Right now im seriously hesitant to get the Lumia 820 and my god i love that phone for reasons even I can't understand :|

I know you can't actually do anything about this and I know you write from a mostly first world perspective, I just want to let you know that many of us still have to do things the old way because amazon won't sell us MP3s because they don't have distribution right for our region, or that Microsoft doesn't have my country (Trinidad and Tobago) listed as an option in their choice of countries for your microsoft account (not your hotmail/outlook account).

PS, my microsoft account was set as USA back when i was 13, and now that I want it set to my country to block all the unusable features, i cant, because on the msoft account page, i cant change countries...

I know, microsoft is a hard and difficult company to understand;

But how hard is it to leave what was working alone, and fix the stuff that has been broken forever? (cough length limited outlook password... cough)

Thanks for all the great articles and help Paul. Love the new site and love the honesty. Keep up the great work.

Cheers!!!

rwburnham
on Dec 7, 2012

Why did Microsoft separate out Podcasts from the rest of the media? Why can I only get those on the phone? Sometimes I want to listen to podcasts on my computer and have that activity synced with the phone. Is that no longer an option?

Bacchus1976
on Nov 11, 2012

Your post felt a bit dishonest to me for the reasons I noted. If you think my language was over the top, fair enough, but that doesn't dismiss the point.

I don't agree that the things you described are new. It's a reskinned version of Zune with a few more Modern UI elements.

The iTunes Sync is nice, but that's the only "upgrade" here. You ignore the many, many things that are now missing.

moonklash
on Nov 12, 2012

I didn't get a Lumia 800 because I was waiting for Windows Phone 8, now 8 is here it looks like a lot of the Windows Phone 7 functionality I wanted has been lost! Quite frustrating and enough to stop me buying, however I have to just ask - I've heard podcast support and also wireless syncing and are both missing but in the screenshot above there's clearly a tab for Podcast. Or that just the settings within the phone itself (rather than syncing?)

Daftly one of the things that have stopped me upgrading is removing the FM radio. I value it when travelling abroad....

pthurrott
on Nov 12, 2012

Podcasts are supported in Windows Phone 8. I just wrote about this: http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/windows-phone-8-tip-enjoy-podcasts-go

moonklash
on Nov 12, 2012

Ah - interesting, thanks Paul. I'll take a look.

Bacchus1976
on Nov 12, 2012

WP8 downloads podcasts over-the-air directly on the phone. The Windows Phone App and Xbox Music do not support podcasts on the PC.

So, you can have podcasts on your phone but not on your desktop and they don't sync.

notsirk
on Nov 13, 2012

I just upgraded to WP8 and downloaded the new sync client for Win7 and I gotta say it looks like they threw that together in about a half hour.

I don't understand why I can't continue using the Zune client to sync my new device. Also, why didn't they just re-brand it instead of dumping this piece of crap on us with no features, no settings, and no style?

Veer Maharaj
on Dec 10, 2012

You can use the older media players like Winamp, Windows Media Player and Media Monkey to do music management now. Ur not just limited to Zune. However, syncing podcasts is a issue of sorts unless you use the itunes work around. Videos and Pictures are just drag and drop now which is decent enough.

TheKingsOfMS
on Nov 14, 2012

I have to completely agree with the comments above regarding the new desktop Win7/Win 8 sync client for windows phone 8. It is a huge disappointment to me since I expected a continuation of the great service that I have received from the Zune Pass over the years. I have been a subscriber of Zune Pass since 2007 beginning with the Zune 30, Zune 120, WP7, and now WP8. Until now, the syncing or music has been flawless. The wireless syncing of autoplaylists onto devices that have limited storage space have been my primary method of music consumption as this keeps the music “fresh”. It bothers me that this feature was removed but I can learn to live with it. The greatest testament that I could give the Zune software, hardware, and services was that “it just worked”, and “I never had to think about it”. Now the problems are numerous. The top three are: 1) Music either purchased through Zune or downloaded as part of the subscription service won’t play and displays the error “We are unable to confirm the media usage rights for this content” 2) album art missing. 3)Playlist syncing results in the playlist being transferred; unfortunately the playlist is empty on the device. These are all things that I expect Microsoft will fix in the coming months but from my perspective, I shouldn’t have to wait. It was something that already worked and it never occurred to me that we would go backwards in terms of functionality. I’m really disappointed!

zqwolf
on Nov 15, 2012

Hey Paul, any word on the issue with not being able to sync videos to wp8? Just bought a 8x and keep getting error messages. (cant verify media usage rights, cant play this type of file). One video is a xbox purchased movie. the other just a wmv.

pthurrott
on Nov 15, 2012

This won't work for purchased movies (hm... I think), but try drag and drop from File Explorer for non-DRM content. Actually, try it for both. :)

Veer Maharaj
on Dec 8, 2012

What we need is a 3rd part video player with more video format support. So you drag and drop the files, open the app, navi to the vids and just play. Very androidesq but should allow for more functionality.

Now if only someone would make a tops video player. Hmmm...

sircasio
on Nov 29, 2012

Has anyone else just plugged their phone into a Win7 machine? I didn't install any software and here is what I got:
https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=299686C392F88C07!1764&authkey=!AGOPNw8FTSyX48c

Is this the "desktop app"? And why are there two items in the taskbar? One that looks like its just a phone? They both show the same window.

Veer Maharaj
on Dec 8, 2012

Should just pop up in My Computer as a MTP device, just as a camera or android device would.

adcmtc
on Jan 9, 2013

I am still on XP. I know sad, but that is where I am at at the moment .... and have a brand new Lumia 920. Confused .... Contradiction! mmm maybe.

Anyway, I have been trying to find a way to sync my iTunes and WMP libraries with my phone and nearly gone mad in the process.

I know, I know copy files blah blah, MTP blah blah. That is a nightmare. Anyway I have just tracked down a really cool answer and wanted to put it out there.

Use DoubleTwist software. Very simple and iTunesesque and best of all 'no strings' free. Secondly turn off the Connect to XBox Music setting on the phone. The Xbox music database seems to corrupt the iTunes Metadata resulting in split albums.

Found it by searching iTunes on www.windowsphone8tips.com

Happy :-)

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