How To Enable Half Stars In Itunes

Being obsessive on how i organize my thousands of songs in Itunes, I found that the wimpy 1-5 star ratings weren't cutting it. So I found a way to rate them a half. This is very useful if you like everything rated EXACTLY how you want it.



*Disclaimer... this SHOULDN'T cause problems with your Itunes. If you do everything right, it will be fine.

NEED:

1. Itunes (duh)
2. A computer (either mac OR windows, separate instructions for both)
Mac users go to step 6...

Step 1 Windows Instructions

If your computer is running windows, use this set of instructions.
If your computer is a Mac, use the OTHER instructions. (skip to step )

First off, don't have Itunes running whille you do this. You can, BUT you'll have to restart Itunes in order for this to take effect.
Just to be safe, close it anyway...

Now, find the ItunesPrefs.xml file.

Usually (in Vista) this is at
C:\Users\YOUR USERNAME HERE\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes

In XP, this is at
C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USERNAME\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes

Replace YOUR USERNAME with your computer user name (duh)
The application data folder is usually hidden in windows so you'll have to type this in the explorer bar.

The folder looks like this-----------

Comments

[AlmightyFduffle]

hey, nice taste in music

[odixon-luinenburg]

Just so you know, this still works in itunes 10.
This is amazing, thankyou. I never thought it would be this easy.
Now to see how it translates onto my iphone...

[f86sabre]

the UserPreferencesdoes not exist on iTunes 8

[musicninja17]

Weird. I have 8 and it does. Look again....

[hmm...]

Never mind. I found it.

[hmm...]

What about 10?

[JudahCris]

Awesome Guide!!!

rating all my songs now...
Album 4 of 76

[firedragonblood]

worked! and it was super easy. now i can be super anal about rating my music

[elCarlito1]

What if you're using windows 7? Where would you go then?

[microsoftman]

wish i new i got same problem (:

[tanmanknex]

 AHHH!!! CAN'T CLOSE ITUNES!!!  Almost got it...  There!  I didn't want to close itunes. ;)  Great 'ible!

[swishinj]

when i try to save it says access to the iTunesprefs.xml was denied!

[A P3RS0N]

If you're a limited user, have an admin allow write permissions to iTunesprefs.xml.

[swishinj]

 no i computer admin!

[A P3RS0N]

then make sure that iTunes is closed (check the taskmgr for instances of iTunes.exe & iTunesHelper.exe) and make sure that write permissions are enabled on the file. You may have to change the ownership of the file to your account.

[Seleziona]

Worked on mine

[musicninja17]

Just curious.....are you using Windos (if so what flavour) or mac? glad this worked for you.....

[Seleziona]

It's on windows XP

[cbrown222]

didnt work for my mac

[musicninja17]

Did you read the mac instructions/go through the terminal?

[A P3RS0N]

I tried this, and it reset my Apple Store Settings, My Itunes Prefs, and some other things. then spit it out. I had to go thru heck w/ apple to fix it. Any help?

[musicninja17]

I'm not sure why it did this for you..... maybe you accidently deleted a line of code or something..... I'm sorry this happened, but like I said, its never done that before.....

[musicninja17]

Ummm...by any chance are you using a mac???

[A P3RS0N]

Nope. Vista Home Prem. x64, though. My library was fine, it started w/ the Itunes etup Assistant. I haven't used that for 3 years. It gave me a 5002 error when logging in to the store, and I couldn't use any DRM music (only 1 album though, so no biggie.) It reset itself ~ 2 hrs later.

[musicninja17]

Weird..... ooh Vista....maybe thats what did it..... but did it revert it to half stars?

[A P3RS0N]

Nope. Defaulted back to full stars

[musicninja17]

Oh........what was the name of the file you edited and what is your itunes version?

[A P3RS0N]

C:\Users\Sean\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\Itunesprefs.xml 8.1.1.10

[Kyri]

YAY! Finally I can accurately rate my songs. Will people on the network who are viewing my library be able to see the 1/2s? (Apologies if you've mentioned this in the instructable; I haven't had a chance to look through it all yet)

[musicninja17]

What do you mean by "on the network"? as in sharing the same library on multiple computers?

[reddog92396]

Wow! My friend had this and I was wondering how!

[musicninja17]

You're welcome ;) Glad you like it

[insomniac]

perfect! thanks.

[tamashii]

This is incredible! It couldn't have been easier to implement, either. Thanks for this!

[captainspud]

It wouldn't let me type in the word pad! I could only copy but not paste! Help please.

[musicninja17]

sorry it took me so long to get back to you....

[musicninja17]

...hmm......try copying the whole length of text to a different file maybe, and then saving that as the first file.... or you could just try opening it in notepad....it might work like that....

[A.C.E.]

hey, if you have a jailbroken ipod you might be able to go into the ipod_control folder via ssh ans do something like this, but it would probably just come out in cydia sooner or later. could you do enable 1/4 stars? lol

[musicninja17]

No, i don't think Itunes has support for 1/4 stars... but if anyone figures out how to do that... XD

[NachoMahma]

. If you will look at the "dHJ1ZQ==" part as hex or binary data, you may be able to figure something out. Maybe not.