Can't drag files from Explorer onto Playlist area

[Chris V]

Hi Peter

I have never got this drag and drop feature to work. I can move music files around in explorer, but as soon as I drag them over the XXHighEnd Playlist area I get a 'no entry' sign.

I currently get the tracks by highlighting them, and then 'opening'

Cheers Chris

[PeterSt]

Uhohh ...

There was a stage I had this myself, and I don't know anymore what I did to solve that.
Could you try this please (change is low that it helps) :

Rightclick on the XX icon, and Run as Administrator. Then try again.

[Chris V]

Wont let me run as administrator until I put in a username and password. Dont know where to do that!

[PeterSt]

Startbutton - Control Panel - User Accounts and then something like add password.

When it doesn't help and you don't like the necessity of entering the password (which will be needed then after each boot), you can delete it from here as well.

[Chris V]

Nope, opening as administrator did not help

[PeterSt]

Chris, I think I recall when this happened to me ... Checking it out might be a bit awkward for you;

Most probably you have several disks (like the interal HDD and possibly USB disks, or something you can reach over the LAN).
Now, assuming you do have a few of these possibilities, could you please check whether from each of those it doesn't work.

More or less related, could you also check this :

You logon to your Vista system with a Username;
This Username is shown in Explorer, right underneath "Desktop";
Somewhere underneath your Username, the files you just tried to drag onto XX might exist. But, I don't know how reliable the Search function from Explorer is in there (because Vista is tricking things here). Anyway, you should look for *.WAV files obviously.

If you don't find anything, open a Dos box (start button - run - cmd), which will bring you to the folder (directory) with your Username (c:\Users\[your Username]). In there, type dir *.wav /s

If your files show up there, that's the problem. When this is so indeed, we'll proceed from there.

[Chris V]

Most probably you have several disks (like the interal HDD and possibly USB disks, or something you can reach over the LAN).
Now, assuming you do have a few of these possibilities, could you please check whether from each of those it doesn't work.

I'm using XX on a stand alone laptop

sMore or less related, could you also check this :

You logon to your Vista system with a Username;
This Username is shown in Explorer, right underneath "Desktop";
Somewhere underneath your Username, the files you just tried to drag onto XX might exist. But, I don't know how reliable the Search function from Explorer is in there (because Vista is tricking things here). Anyway, you should look for *.WAV files obviously.

If you don't find anything, open a Dos box (start button - run - cmd), which will bring you to the folder (directory) with your Username (c:\Users\[your Username]). In there, type dir *.wav /s

If your files show up there, that's the problem. When this is so indeed, we'll proceed from there.

Man just arrived to rip my Dell apart again, so will try later

[Chris V]

Hi Peter

In view of the Dell disaster (see glitches post) I think I will have to leave this investigation for a while. 'Hopefully' someone else may have the same problem and can help.

Cheers Chris

[PeterSt]

Most probably you have several disks (like the interal HDD and possibly USB disks, or something you can reach over the LAN).
Now, assuming you do have a few of these possibilities, could you please check whether from each of those it doesn't work.

I'm using XX on a stand alone laptop

sMore or less related, could you also check this :

You logon to your Vista system with a Username;
This Username is shown in Explorer, right underneath "Desktop";
Somewhere underneath your Username, the files you just tried to drag onto XX might exist. But, I don't know how reliable the Search function from Explorer is in there (because Vista is tricking things here). Anyway, you should look for *.WAV files obviously.

If you don't find anything, open a Dos box (start button - run - cmd), which will bring you to the folder (directory) with your Username (c:\Users\[your Username]). In there, type dir *.wav /s

If your files show up there, that's the problem. When this is so indeed, we'll proceed from there.

Man just arrived to rip my Dell apart again, so will try later

Did anything come from this (hence did you try these things ?  )

[Chris V]

Hi Peter

Had a look at this today.

I tried a few times (without success) to drag and drop several recognisable tracks into XX

I then went straight to opening a DOS box and looked for those tracks.

There were plenty of tracks listed but all had yesterdays date when I moved quite a few CDs onto the hard drive.

There were no tracks with todays dates to show the drag and drop.

Cheers Chris

[Jack]

Chris
Is it possible that you are using XX's library button & trying to drag from there? I have just tried & duplicated your problem. You must use Windows explorer (Computer\Drive\folder etc) & drag from there. I don't see how this can be an XX problem !? It works for me, so it "must" work for you!
Jack

[Chris V]

Chris
Is it possible that you are using XX's library button & trying to drag from there?
Jack

Oh dear, thats exactly what I was trying to do - thought it was just another window to drag and drop from .

Well thats sorted that problem out - cheers

[PeterSt]

Hahaha , uhhmm ...



Very good that you solved it, but *this* really is a problem. A dangerous one ...
Since your original problem apparantly is unrelated, this is rather off topic now, and maybe I'll split this post to a new topic. Anyway :

Somewhere underneath your Username, the files you just tried to drag onto XX might exist. But, I don't know how reliable the Search function from Explorer is in there (because Vista is tricking things here). Anyway, you should look for *.WAV files obviously.

If you don't find anything, open a Dos box (start button - run - cmd), which will bring you to the folder (directory) with your Username (c:\Users\[your Username]). In there, type dir *.wav /s

There were plenty of tracks listed but all had yesterdays date when I moved quite a few CDs onto the hard drive.

What happened here, is that because of insufficient rights -or whatever it exactly is that caused this for you- your files weren't copied to the location you indicated, but to the shallow file copy area (my wording) Vista invented for you. There is no way you can see this other than looking / checking you just did. However, there are some things you really can't perform on them, and one of them would be the dragging + drop in certain situations (which situations I never recognized). A pain for sure would be the inability to open the file in read/write mode, which immediately would let die XX.

The latter took me virtually months to solve because a. I did not even know the files could go there and b. the open for read and write (the latter) caused this. This by itself was solved by me by opening the files for read only (which really is sufficient of course), BUT now you don't notice anymore that it happend (what ? -> the fact that the files are really somewhere else than you copued them to). So :

Your files just aren't in the place you think they are, which is really, really dangerous.

Maybe currently I don't have the time or rest to work this out properly (kind of over 4am here) but it would mean that when you e.g. have an external disk where you wanted the files, they just are not there. Hence, detach the disk, bring it over to somewhere else, and they just are not there ...

This phenomenon is "official Vista", although I forgot why this really is. But :

Once you "created" this situation it will keep on doing this.

The one and only solution is to locate the physical location like the Dos box showed you (you can go there by Explorer just the same), and delete the subfolder one level up (I forgot how it is called, but you will automatically see which one it is). Do note however, you will be physically deleting the files ...
And I'm not sure whether it is even possible to copy them from there to another safe location first (they could end up in there *again*).
Once this subfoler has gone, you can safely start copying things as usual.

As usual ? well, that's what it is ... That's what it is that I don't know. For example, I could incur for this by copying files from my USB harddisk to the C:\ drive. It's a kind of Vista protection mechanism, I dunno ...
Remember, the USB disk is one example, and I am sure there are more (because I encountered it more often).

A nasty Vista habit, which is not even a bug ...

[Chris V]

Emmmmmmm

This takes me way out of my depth with my existing computing knowledge

Can I ask a few direct questions?

1. Am I right in saying this is not an XXHighend issue, but more about how Vista sorts out the storage of files?

2. I am planning to load all my CDs onto a dedicated USB external hard drive connected, during just this process, to an XP computer on the internet (for getting track names and album art). Will this get around any Vista storage issues.

3. If this is not an XXHighend issue will you still be striving to resolve it (Couldn't blame you if you didn't )

4. What should dir *.wav have in it. Is it a permanent store or should it renew (say) each time you reboot?

[Jack]

Chris
If I might be so bold, I think your 2 issues so far have been "user orientated" (don't hit me!) The problems are neither XX or OS related. All this will be second nature to you soon, honest! To answer your point 2 above, connect the USB drive to whichever PC runs EAC that has an internet connection. EAC deals with the track names so you just need to find the coverart yourself, whilst EAC is doing it's thing. An easy option is Virgin or HMV, search for the album & right click on their coverart & "save picture as" folder.jpg pointing it to your folder with the appropriate WAVs in it. It doesn't matter whether you use XP or Vista for this & either OS will see the contents of the drive, albeit with a little more "eye candy" in Vista. As far as points 3 & 4 go, YOU don't have an issue. Just be sure to back up what you rip regularly & I'm sure everything will be groovy. One point for all, never turn off a USB drive if there is any chance that it being accessed by Windows. I once without thinking turned mine off during shutdown, next time I booted up the drive was empty (boot sector info destroyed) fortunately there is software available to re-establish this info, but it was not for the faint hearted! Now, back to the music.
Jack

[Chris V]

Chris
If I might be so bold, I think your 2 issues so far have been "user orientated" (don't hit me!) The problems are neither XX or OS related.

Thanks Jack, said with maximum diplomacy . What you really mean is, I shot myself in the foot - at least twice

Being an analytical scientist by trade I tend always to move too fast and too deep into this sort of thing without the knowledge to support it.

It is a rapid learning curve, but also a slipperty one.