Zune Marketplace, RIP

Anonymous
2016-04-28T08:12:22+00:00

Officially, we all heard that the Zune Marketplace, and the grandfathered Zune Pass, was going to be shut down many months ago. Of course, those of us who were fans of the service weren't happy. Well, whether out of incompetence or benevolence (I'm hoping it was the latter), at least on my end, both of these lasted significantly longer. I was still getting my free 10 mp3's as late as January. Sadly, I was only able to redeem 7 of those 10 credits before it mysteriously stopped working, but it was in time to the get the last David Bowie album, so I'm not complaining. Still, the Zune Marketplace, reduced to merely its function of providing DRM-protected content you could sync with your Zune, still worked. And worked. And worked. I was beginning to think that perhaps the better angels of Microsoft's conscience prevailed, and those of us with Zune Pass, err, Xbox, err, Groove Passes would still be able to download unlimited content for our PC's and Zune devices. Tonight, April 27, 2016, that officially ended.

My Zune software had what I thought was a glitch. It shut down, and I was offered the choice of getting it debugged. But when I restarted the software, I noticed two changes. First, when you right click artists or albums, you no longer have the option of being taken to where that content is on the Zune Marketplace. Instead, it says (for example), "More about the Flaming Lips ONLINE." Clicking those links just brings you to the Groove homepage, and an offer to sign up. It doesn't matter what artist or album: every time, the link is to the Groove homepage, even if you're signed in, nothing specific to those artists.

And the worst of all: just like the Zune Social, the Zune Marketplace text at the top of the software is gone. Your options are now limited to Quickplay, Collection, and Device. Now, I still have a lot of stuff I've downloaded from the Marketplace on my PC and in my Zune device. I don't know what will happen with that. It still plays for now, I'm noticing. Though as a test, I tried to see if one track that hadn't been synced would still do so. No... A message about needing to check usage rights, and to sign on with a Zune Music Pass. When you right click on Zune Pass content, the DRM now says... "Unknown," when it used to offer more specifics about being usable for at least another month. We'll see what happens with what's still on the device. At the very least, as of now, all Zune Marketplace DRM-protected downloads still play in the software.

So... I'm disappointed to see the Zune Marketplace go. I have nothing against Groove... I've played around with it, both on my PC and my phone, but I don't think it's quite for me. The whole point of having music stored locally was that I wouldn't need to remained tethered to a network at all times. Plus, the best thing about the Zune player was its ability to shuffle. A lot of my music isn't available in Groove, so even with a shuffle function on Groove, I'd have to exclude a lot from my collection. I have some time to decide, I suppose. In any event, I suppose I'm lucky that I've been able to get this much functionality out of Zune, years after its death was declared. Even if it's now just a media player, that's fine, because it means I can listen to my massive music collection and podcasts without having to worry about dataplans and cellular access. As for the Zune Marketplace, it's been great having you. Checking out new music will be trickier now.

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-04-28T14:00:27+00:00

    I am so upset, I was also forced to restart my Zune software, and the marketplace is gone. Literally the worst day of my entire life.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-15T01:35:34+00:00

    Well, I'm in that club.

    I have 2 Zune HD's and Various Older (30GB, 8GB etc)

    My Main Zune still played most music, but my others required sync a few weeks ago,

    So I Synced, then I used one, and it still said to sync, so I did, nothing, no music played.

    Launched Zune App, sure enough all DRM Music reports the DRM Error.

    So.

    I Rebooted my PC to a Old Partition prior to moving everything to a new SSD.

    Launched the Zune App, I had Marketplace Back, and Wow, low and behold, I was able to refresh the Zune Pass DRM'd Content and reset the 30 Days, Synced all my zunes and everything was working again,

    Closed the app, opened again, bam, ZuneDRM Sync Functions were removed, and now I have about 28 days left before I will no longer be able to sync any of those tracks.

    If there was a way to revert versions, I'd like to know.

    the DRM Server is online still as off Wednesday this week.

    I dont think it would be too much to ask for the Zune Software to be patched to at least be able to sync DRM Rights again,

    or make it so Groove can Sync to Zune Devices.

    I've been w/ Zune since the beginning.... I have multiple Zunes from the 30GB Original, to the HD, and now all of them are slowly becoming useless,

    I refuse to use my phone, Maybe If Groove actually read the music from my SD Card, I'd use it to stream the DRM music while still being able to play my own MP3s...

    you can get software that removes the drm

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-07-08T16:46:30+00:00

    I am unable to log into my ZUNE application. I have reset the password and everything. Does anyone know how I can just load music to it from my computer so that I can at least use it as an mp3 player?

    you don't need to log in to the application to use it.

     logging in is just to access the marketplace, which doesn't exist anymore - hence why you cant log in.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-04-29T23:23:40+00:00

    Yeah, it seems that Microsoft REALLY don't want anyone to continue using the old Zune marketplace software...

    I ran mine today and managed to download a track, but the software auto-updated (you get no choice in the matter) and.......no more marketplace.

    I've found that you can't reinstall the old version because it checks online for updates before running. You also can't install it without an internet connection, as it checks then refuses to go any further.

    I even tried replacing all the files in the Zune directory with those from the previous version (which I still have on a laptop) and write protecting the entire folder. It still runs the new, disabled version somehow.

    It appears that the software doesn't actually run from any of those files, but from some unknown place/file - which means that unless anyone can trace the file, it's impossible to replace it with the previous version.

    This means I can't even use the old (not yet disabled) version from my laptop, because as soon as I do, the secretly located file will get updated in the background and I'll lose that version too.

    There are not enough swear words in the world to sum this up.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-04-28T21:08:57+00:00

    Sorry to see them totally disable the Marketplace even when I couldn't stream or rent music right from the Zune software anymore I had access to a great database tool for knowing what was going on in the world of music; other than the big name and promoted releases.

    You can't even really get that from the Groove ap that is all in Store which is just a jumbled mess of algorithms that is showing you what is popular with I assume buyers and pass listeners that came out recently. You dig in to the new music area of your respected genre on the Zune software it was listed in the order of added to the Marketplace no algorithms putting them in a funky order burying stuff that is new, something you never heard of, and possibly interesting.  Great tool to actually discover new music without going through bandcamp after bandcamp or whatever pages.

    Also lose the ease of seeing what is in my collection that  is in the Marketplace because lets face it Groove ap doesn't pick up every little thing in my collection. So when figuring out what I need for a long drive on my phone don't have the ease of one button check to see if such and such album I will be able to stream. Haven't found an easy one click to see if an album is streamable that is also in my personal collection without typing in a search. With the heavy graphical use you can't even scroll through your collection easily it takes time, to much time, to catch up which is a problem when dealing with 2000 plus artists, 4000 plus albums, and 48,000 plus songs.

    Basically the Groove ap is all frustrating and more of an easy purchase tool rather than a listen tool. Great tool if you are starting from scratch not someone collecting music for 30 plus years.

    Noticed the properties of rented music all say Unknown now so guess will have to wait for them to die. Though I do wonder what is going to happen to the early days stuff I bought that still had some kind of DRM protection when everything wasn't DRM free if I have to buy a load of Black Flag albums again I am going to be mad.

    Also notice the player screen saver doesn't go to artist centric slide shows anymore. The switching out of album art will still catch peoples eye walking by but not as much as the artist slide shows.

    I get it programs and software always move on and not cost effective to support older software but being one of those that has been around awhile nothing has been improved by making things prettier and imitating the competition. 

    It's been real and it's been fun. *pour a 40 on the ground for my dead Zune Marketplace homie*

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