How can I load up my iPod from my wifes computer without disrupting her iTunes?
The downside of logging in as a different user is that unless they have their iTunes library on a shared drive, he’ll have to copy the music files to the second user’s side of the drive. It’s a great suggestion, however, if the different users value the rating system, play counters, or want to have their own EQ settings and something I would suggest for anyone planning to long-term share one machine (though I’d go with the iTunes lib on a shared drive for space-saving). Otherwise, Effigy’s suggestion is fine: we have 6 iPods of varying vintages/owners/usages managed from one user account here with smart playlists set to autosync and haven’t encountered any issues at all. Per Apple.
There’s a simpler way that my husband and I adopted. You can use two different iTunes libraries on the same computer and login. My husband created a library for his iPod, and I have a library for mine. When you start iTunes and need to change it over to your library, hold down SHIFT (on Windows, not sure of the key on OS X) until you see a dialog asking you to choose a library. Note that iTunes will by default start up with the last selected library, so you will need to either restart it to her library before you leave or she will also need to know how to change the library. For us, we created shortcuts in each other’s iTunes directories to the other’s directory so that we could quickly jump back and forth between libraries for the choose library step. Using this method, too, you can use the same music files for both of you (assuming no DRM…with DRM, it’s a little more complex but not by much, assuming you share an iTunes account).
1. Connect iPod to your wifes computer. 2. Open iTunes. 3. Select iPod in the Source pane. 4. On the Summary tab select “Manually manage music and videos” and click Apply. When manual management is enabled, you can still sync some content automatically. Select any content tab such as Movies or TV Shows to enable automatic syncing for that type of content. Once your computer is back up and running, you can untick manually manage music in iTunes on your wifes computer (if she likes it to auto-sunc, that is).
