Dear Microsoft

[silverthorne]

This is my gentle suggestion that you fuck off.

Thanks for setting my Zune up so that it would fry its memory after a fatal error and then not reprogram itself when hooked up to the computer, thus rendering it into a useless brick that can't even double as a paper weight.

NO love, and a lot of cussing.

Me.

(Yes, I know, it's Microsoft and I should've known better. Let me cry in peace, 'kay?)

PS to MS--You get half of a grudging point for making the computer software capable of re-downloading the free tracks I've been collecting since June so that I can at least burn them onto a CD before I might possibly have to delete the whole program, depending on what I get to replace the brick.

Still hate you, though.

Comments

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

Oh no! I thought everything was supposed to fix itself by afternoon on the 1st!

Microsoft better throw you a bone. They're gonna have plenty of mad Zune owners to deal with I betcha.

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

Apparently, my Zune had other plans. :/

We'll see. I'm not holding up much hope; at this point I'm probably going to just look into a new device, because I'm sure by the time I'm through with whatever gyrations Microsoft wants me to go through to get this fixed, it'll probably have cost me less time and money to just not bother and just get a new player (based on experience dealing with the x-box I gave away that has since red-ringed-of-death'd itself and the gyrations they made me and her go through before telling us there wasn't much we could do...even with a three year warranty, because it was supposedly registered under a name that was not mine).

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

And you've done all the drain-battery-and-resync stuff, right? I'm sure you have. That really bites!

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

Yep. I was already in the process of doing that anyway when I found out about the programming oopsie because my Zune had jammed on me before, and that's how I had fixed it before, too (minus the fatal error business). And I did it twice this time, just to make sure the first time when it refused to work wasn't just a fluke.

It wasn't.

Good thing all my Bon Jovi is on disk... ;)

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

I know this doesn't make you feel any better but lookee, you can get an Apple-refurbished 3rd gen Nano for $80: http://store.apple.com/us/product/FA978?mco=MTkwNzA

One of us! One of us! One of us!

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

LOL.

I'll look. (Although it does say 'out of stock' on that page, *g*).

Wally world is just up the street, so I'll probably just see what they have there. I seem to recall at least four different players with decent memory that were under $100.

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

Ah, boo. Well, check out the "refurbished iPod" section on the website and see what is there. My second gen Nano is a refurb and I've never had any problems, and Apple sends them with warranties. The shipping was free and fast, and iTunes is pretty easy to use, once you get used to it. The program, not the store I mean. I don't really care for buying things from the iTunes store, but the program is a great music program.

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

Well...there is one catch--All my credit cards are on DO NOT USE status...so unless they take a debit online...:)

Walmart does have iPods...

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

I dunno about debit cards. Do you buy much online music? I barely do; I like to hold CD booklets in my hands.
Also, I get a *lot* of my music from blogs and whatnot, and all you have to do there is save the song to your desktop, then move it into iTunes The Program so you can load the iPod. iTunes The Store also does have free "single of the week" offerings, too, in all different genres, but I forget to go get them. I think I used iTunes for a full year before I ever bought anything from the Store. I don't like the store too much.
On a PC you can also convert any WMA files you might have in iTunes so you can get them on your iPod.
For CDs, you just pop them in your computer and import them into iTunes. Easy-peasy.
However, I still think Microsoft ought to give you a new Zune, since it was their fault your old one died. This is their chance to build customer retention and goodwill in the Zune vs iPod war; they need to not blow it.

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

I mean to buy the ipod with. :) I can use debit at Walmart--there are not many online stores that accept debit, though. :)

All of my music is on CD somewhere in the house--I tend to only have music on the computer long enough to get it into the player, and then delete the library, both because I don't usually play tunes on the comp, and because it's a memory hog (Takes 20% plus when I have just half my collection on here).

I don't like purchasing music online, because if there's a crash, and the service doesn't allow for files that you can burn onto a CD, you're out of luck once you lose the file (or it gets corrupted). I like to have my music in hand as well...it's just that CDs don't travel very well, so the player is more convenient when I'm away from home. :)

[rebl1969.livejournal.com]

Oh! If it's a Visa- or Mastercard-secured debit card, it ought to work...that's the premise behind the branding, anyway. My SIL uses her debit card at Amazon all the time with no problems, anyway.

Agree with everything you say! My iPod is traveling music :)

[silverthorne.livejournal.com]

ORLY? (Heh, internet chat).

I might try that then, after some price checking. 'Course, I have at least a week to research--$40 is not going to be enough to buy any player, and that's all I have available to me ATM. (Good budget, but not a lot of spending money for the next 6 months. Then again, I'd rather not fall behind on bills...that would be a lot uglier than not having travel tunes for a while).