Now that the new Zune website and software is up and running, I thought it would cool to quickly go over the installation of the new software as well as the firmware upgrade to the first generation Zune. You won’t find a review of the software itself - I’ll save that for later on. For now - this is simply the installation process which I’m sure a lot of you will be undertaking today or sometime this week.

First, make sure to download the new Zune software from the new Zune.net website. If you want the entire Zune "experience", make sure to get yourself a Zune tag. You can then share your album and music listening experience with friends and others in the Zune community. If you want to see what I’m listening to these days, look me up at krunkermedia (that’s my Zune and Xbox Live gamer tag).

Installing the new Zune software

The new Zune software package weighs in at around 34 MB but the overall software installation process is in itself quite fast. Once the setup begins, you’ll see the following screen shots:

Ah yes.. the good ol EULA. You might as well accept it..

You’re now pretty much ready to install.

There are basically three steps to the initial software install. The installer will check for new updates, prepare your computer, and then finally install the Zune software.

still installing..

Hey look at that. The software is installed! Now comes time to go over your Zune software settings.

You can choose to either "go right to my collection" or go "customize settings first". I’m more of a power user, so I’m inclined to choose customization first but that’s entirely up to you. If you choose to go to your music collection first, you can always change the default settings later on.

We’re in the process of customizing settings. The screen here shows you all the directories that the Zune software monitors for different kinds of media files. (excuse my blacked out directory names…)

Next up - set up your file associations..

Would you like to enroll the Customer Experience Improvement Program?? Sure…..

And we’re in!!

For those of you curious - this is version 2.1 of the new Zune software. Again - I won’t go into the software details yet - we’ll save that for later on.

Updating the Zune firmware

That’s only the first step of course.. If you have a first generation Zune, you’ll need to update the firmware on the Zune with the latest firmware from Microsoft. This is definitely one of the areas where Microsoft should be commended. Features being rolled out with the second generation Zune are also be made available on the older Zunes. This means you’ll be able to do wireless sync, use the new GUI, support podcasts, etc etc.

To get things rolling, connect your Zune via the USB cable.

I got the above screen shot telling me that I need to update the Zune to version 2.2 of the device software. Let’s go ahead and perform the upgrade!

The software first downloads the update and then..

copies it to the Zune. The overall downloading and copying is quite fast - what ultimately takes time is the actual Zune software install on the player itself.

When the Zune starts the software install, the player will reboot twice before actually finishing up the install. Once the install is finished, you’ll have one more reset and then the new Zune GUI will appear.

Now that the Zune is updated and connected back to the PC, I can begin setting up the rest of the Zune software. First things first - my Zune was originally set up for another PC. Unlike the first version of the Zune software, the new software allows you to connect and sync with a new PC without losing the original content on the Zune.

 

If you have a Zune Tag, you can link your tag to your Zune player now.

Finally, you can tell the Zune software to automatically add all of your media content from some pre-defined folders. I like to manually add my content.

And that’s it! We’re  up and running!!

Note - I did try out the wireless sync option. You need to set up wireless sync from the Zune software application. Here are some screen shots:

 

Here’s the wireless sync setup page. Click on "Setup Wireless Sync" to proceed with the setup.

The Zune software in conjunction with the connected player will attempt to find wireless networks to connect to. If you don’t broadcast your wireless network’s SSID, you can manually enter the information in yourself.

Enter the SSID and passcode if you need to do it manually..

If it all works, the Zune software will notify you. You can then initiate syncs from the Zune.

Oh yes.. for people who are wondering what the new UI looks like on an older Zune…

 

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