MS Vista recover my iTunes songs

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Level 1

4 points

MS Vista recover my iTunes songs

Running a Windows Vista home premium: I have iTunes in two different users. Most of my songs are in the administrator user profile. Last week I realized I cannot get into the administrator user. When I try, I get "The user profile Service failed to logon" "user profile cannot be loaded". My normal user profile which I mostly use works fine including the iTunes with the songs there!

So far, I created a new administrator user profile hoping to transfer iTunes including the songs from the old one to the new one. Using the procedure described in "Fix a corrupted user profile" for windows Vista, however I cannot find the iTunes in the old administrator user.

How can I find my old songs all of which are from my own CDs and move them to my new administrator user?

Older PC with Ooutlook 7

Posted on Mar 23, 2016 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 23, 2016 6:42 AM in response to Xalkis

Looks like your only question is how to find a user's iTunes files. Typically there is an iTunes folder in the user's Music folder.

General remarks: iTunes no longer supports Windows Vista. AVG antivirus reportedly tends to corrupt user profiles.

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Answer 2

Xalkis Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 23, 2016 9:06 AM in response to Marvin Martianul

Marvin thanks for your reply. The problem is the administrator user profile being corrupted I cannot get into it! I understand iTunes is no longer supported, however iTunes still works fine in another user in the same computer. Also thanks for the AVG input.

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Answer 3

Mar 23, 2016 3:37 PM in response to Xalkis

While logged in as new administrator, can you not navigate to Computer > C > Users > corrupt administrator > Music > iTunes > iTunes Media? Of course the drive might not be C in your case, and I never actually tried to copy files from one administrator's folder to another. If all else fails, rip the CDs again. BTW it's been two years since iTunes worked "fine" on Vista. I'm running Vista myself, and have iTunes 11.1.5 installed as sort of a memorial. I rarely use it.

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Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Mar 23, 2016 3:36 PM in response to Xalkis

See https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/947215 for advice on how you might get back into the non-loading profile.

If you cannot make that work then you'll probably need to grant yourself permissions to look around inside the non-loading profile from another user account so that you can move the library out from it. If the library is in the standard layout you could move the entire iTunes folder from C:\Users\<User>\Music to C:\ as C:\iTunes and then shift-start-iTunes to connect to the library file at C:\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl.

tt2

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Answer 5

Xalkis Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 23, 2016 4:01 PM in response to Marvin Martianul

Thank you very much.

I started with marvin's solution and was able to recover the songs! Over 3000 songs all from my CDs some of whch I no longer have the CDs. I also believe turingtest2 solution would have worked althouth I did not followed through all the way because I did not want to double my songs.

Thanks to both of you I solved my problem.

BTW Like I said I run Vista home premium and I sync my iphone 6 with MS Office 2007 Outlook contacts and calendar through one user iTunes and the songs through the lost user's (administrator) iTune. Now thanks to you I plan to merge all the songs in one of the user's iTunes and hope to sync all three Contacts, Calendars, and Songs if addional songs have been added.

Thanks again

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Answer 6

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Mar 23, 2016 4:43 PM in response to Xalkis

Good news. 🙂

See Backup your iTunes for Windows library with SyncToy to make sure that you have a secure copy of your iTunes library and other important data.

tt2

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Answer 7

Mar 23, 2016 7:11 PM in response to Xalkis

If you're happy, I'm happy. 🙂 Aside from the fact that iTunes crashes every time you exit the program (I hope you haven't globally disabled DEP because that doesn't solve anything), you should avoid using iTunes to sync photos with your iPhone 6 on account of AppHangB1 crashes. Another thing: Beware of iOS 10 when it is released in September. Apple might pull another special iTunes version for XP and Vista out of their hat, but I wouldn't count on it. Do not upgrade your iPhone to iOS 10 unless you are prepared to buy a new computer - not that iTunes works very well on Windows 10 either.

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Answer 8

Xalkis Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 24, 2016 6:13 AM in response to Marvin Martianul

Marvin I'm happy to retrieve my songs and not having to re-record them.They are also in my iPhone 6 and in an old 30GB iPod.

Per your advice I checked into my DEP and to my surprise it was set for "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services" . I changed it to "Turn on for all programs and services except those I select." None have been selected and left it that way.

It remains to be seen if the iTunes will still work without crashing. I will be careful for next September if I still have this old guy (Gateway bought in January 2007). This computer has gotten very slow and it will have to replaced ASAP.

I very much appreciate your help.

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Answer 9

Xalkis Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 24, 2016 7:36 AM in response to turingtest2

Will check this "Sync Toy" and will do the first chance I get. Thanks for the tip.

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Answer 10

turingtest2

Level 10

278,263 points

Mar 24, 2016 7:37 AM in response to Xalkis

You're welcome. 🙂

tt2

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Answer 11

Mar 24, 2016 7:45 AM in response to Xalkis

Xalkis wrote:

I checked into my DEP and to my surprise it was set for "Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs and services" . I changed it to "Turn on for all programs and services except those I select."

The setting you found is actually the default. It includes certain "OptIn" programs, one of which is iTunes. (I have long wondered whether it was Apple or Microsoft that classified iTunes as OptIn.) I have DEP turned on for all programs on my 32-bit Vista PC. (It is not possible to add an exception for an OptIn program such as iTunes anyway. DEP can only be disabled via command line.)

The computer has gotten very slow? This isn't Vista Forums, but a few suggestions: (1) Open an elevated command prompt and run sfc /scannow. (2) Use CCleaner Free. (3) If you are using more than one security program with real-time protection, uninstall all but one. But if you mean Windows Update is very slow, there is no solution because that is Microsoft's fault. Windows 7 users are reporting similar problems with Windows updates.

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Answer 12

Xalkis Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 24, 2016 12:55 PM in response to Marvin Martianul

First I uninstalled three programs one of which was Skype. The other two were programs I've never used and even forgot their names.

Then I run sfc/scannow on an elevated command prompt and when completed I got "Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.log."

I checked under C:/Windows/Logs/CBS and it had two files CBS and CBS.persist

The CBS had today's date (3/24/2016) and time and included a Text Document with 50,271 KB among many others that had run previously. The logs dated 3/24/16 must have been three yards of text, each line at least twice the width of the screen (23"). I guess it found and corrected a lot of corrupted files.

The other File CBS.persist also had many documents but all of them previously, the last of which was in January of this year.

I restarted the computer and it seems to run a lot faster.Time will tell.

The question I have is do I need to retain all these logs?

Thanks again

Xalkis

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Answer 13

Mar 24, 2016 7:19 PM in response to Xalkis

Xalkis wrote:

"Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them. Details are included in the CBS.log."...The question I have is do I need to retain all these logs?

That is a good outcome, so there is really no need to scrutinize the CBS.log. I already mentioned CCleaner Free. It prevents the buildup of old Windows logs, among other junk files. Good luck Xalkis! 🙂

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