Recovering playlists after ugraded iTunes

The itunes database file that saves all your playlists, ratings, play counts and so on is a file named iTunes Library.itl
The normal folder path for Vista/Windows 7 is here
C:\Users\ username \Music\iTunes



Sounds like you might have several of them on your PC's hard drives. If you do a windows search for them, how many do you find?
Just go to Start > search and type in .itl
You might have to click on "See more results" and then click on Computer

+Thanks for the response, K, I do find the .itl libraries. Some of these have dates tagged to them as I guess thes process has been going on for a few years.+


Yes, every time itunes does an upgrade it should put the current ITL file in a folder named "Previous iTunes Libraries".
You can look at the Date Modified in Windows Explorer to see which one has the most recent changes.



+Now if I upgrade iTunes and need to restore my library and playlists these will be the files I need to do this with?+
Yes, the ITL file is the important database file for itunes. Then of course you need all the media files themselves.



+Also I just did a backup to DVD of my files and lists in iTunes. When I do the upgrade to iTunes would it actuall be possible to restore the contents to the new iTunes from this backup? It took about 9-10 DVD's.+
In theory, yes. But I have never gotten itunes to restore properly when I tested my restore plan. It burned the discs OK, but failed in the middle of the restore. When I burn a disk for backup I use the burning software that came with the PC, not itunes.

There's no tutorial for your special circumstances:
+After I have upgraded to newer versions of iTunes in the past, I always have lost tons of music, although most was recovered either by reripping CDs or by scouring my harddrives to locate the original files+



This isn't supposed to happen. An upgrade shouldn't be 'losing' anything. It should update C:/Program Files, put an old copy of the ITL in the Previous iTunes Library folder, and not touch any of your music/video/podcast etc files.



To get to the root cause - what do you mean by 'losing' tons of music?
Are you getting the dreaded ! original file not found message?
Are you storing your media on external hard drives? Do those drive letters always stay the same, or do they change depending on what you have plugged into your USB ports?



Here is the best explanation I've seen of itunes library database vs itunes library content. Some folks say it's too wordy, but the paragraph of databse vs content is very informative.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to -a-new-hard-drive/

I am not sure about the compatibility mode, since I've never seen that message.


When I installed itunes on my WIn 7 machine, I downloaded it from the apple website and chose SAVE for the setup file (as opposed to RUN).
Then in my administrator account, I right-clicked on iTunesSetup.exe and chose "run as adminstrator" and answered yes to the UAC messages.

+most of which were ripped from CD's that required me to go and name the individual songs to keep them from being listed as 'track 1', 'track 2' and so on.+

Did you rip them as WAV? Or the itunes default, which is AAC? AAC and mp3 files should keep the file name stored in the files themselves. WAV files, I can see them showing up as 'track 1' if you've reimported them to itunes and lost the old database file that kept track of the WAV track names.


+Are you saying that I might get a cleaner install if I download a clean version of iTunes and then import my library and playlists.+
No, I'm saying you might get a more workable install if you reinstall using "run as administrator". The compatibility mode error might go away.
WHen you say import my library and playlists, what exactly are you talking about?
Dragging them into the itunes window or something else?




+is there a way to backup my library to my HDD instead of using DVDs as this takes about 9 disks to do.+
Absolutely. You need to back up the content files and the ITL database file.

+The only option I can find is to backup to CD's or DVD's. By content files are you referring to the individual songs? I have over 3,000 of these.+

Yes, that's the only option available in itunes. I don't even bother with itunes for backups, because I have other files on my PC that I want o make sure I have backed up. Instead, I use SyncToy from Microsoft, with the echo option. This allows incremental backups of only fils that have changed.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=c26efa36-98e0-4ee9-a7c5 -98d0592d8c52&displaylang=en