1. i've heard that burning and then ripping removes the DRM but haven't tried it. if you try it, please confirm if it works? and if i do it first, i'll let you know!

2. there's an option to turn on sharing of the itunes library, maybe that's what you need? i forget where it is, tho, sorry!

Can't you tell the iTunes store to redownload your purchases?

You can solve problem 2 by sharing in your options/preferences.

Problem 1, assuming you've already paid for all the upgrades ($0.30/song for those that could be upgraded, which was worth it for me), used to be solvable by an app called Hymn. I don't know whether that still exists or not or whether it works with current iTunes, but it might be a place to start looking. I still have a bunch of songs that iTunes no longer sells. I'm just backing them up for now.

That's a problem you need to address at the router level. If you're wireless and on a Mac, I might have useful suggestions, but if you're on Wintel or Linux, I'm not going to have good advice. Sorry.

2. This is not a perfect fix, but if you have all of your iTunes library on your iPod, you can connect your iPod to the laptop and play the music from there, through iTunes. This is how I play my music when I travel, and it seems to work just fine for my purposes. Not positive you can run the visualizations through that, though, as I've never tried it. :)

I read a rant by someone when iTunes first introduced the new DRM-free format, about the fact that they required anyone who'd downloaded songs in the original format to upgrade them for an additional cost if they wanted to be able to download any songs in the new format, because all your iTunes-purchased had to be in one format or the other. The iTunes store helpfully offered him the option of paying one flat fee to upgrade his entire music collection at once - which given how much he'd bought from them in the past, was something like $1000. But they may have changed that now - not sure.

At any rate, whether or not they still require you to pay to upgrade all your existing iTunes purchases before downloading any new ones, if the new format costs more, they're unlikely to want to give people any sort of way of doing it for free. But of course, there are nearly always various hacks or workarounds available out there for things like this.

Regarding syncing an iTunes library between two computers, I think they actively try to prevent that, because it would be an easy way for people to share music they'd downloaded with other people. The purpose you're talking about - wanting to be able to listen to the same tracks on your desktop and laptop - seems like it ought to be legal, but I don't know if there's a way they could make that possible without also making it possible to sync libraries with other people's computers.

However, once again, there's always ways around it. I know where all the iTunes-related files live on a Mac, so just copying them over would probably work to sync two Macs. But I don't know where they're located on a PC. So depending on which platform you're on, either I could tell you directly what to look for and where to find it, or it might require a bit of exploring.

Basically, on a Mac, look in /users/[your username]/Music/iTunes and you'll find the following files:

iTunes Library (a database file in a proprietary format)
iTunes Library Extras.itdb
iTunes Library Genius.itdb
iTunes Music Library.xml
iTunes Music (a folder containing the actual music files)

If you've already got the music files on both computers and just want to sync the database info for things like ratings, play counts, etc., then you'll just need to copy over the first four files. If you're syncing for the first time and don't have any of the music on the second computer, you'll want to copy the whole lot - basically everything in the iTunes folder.

I should note that I haven't actually tried this, but as far as I can see it should work, because there don't appear to be any iTunes-related files anywhere in the Library or Preferences of anywhere like that that I've found. And of course I have no idea if the files are all neatly in one place on Windows they way they are on a Mac. But it could be a starting point, anyway.

Strangely enough, what should show up in my e-mail today but an ad for a program that, from the sound of it, does exactly what you want? It appears to be cheap, and comes in both Mac and a Windows versions.

Just so you know, the e-mail in question wasn't spam, it's from a company I've bought stuff from in the past. Anyway, thought you might find it useful...

There are programs that strip away iTunes DRM. Google should help you. (I used one myself a while back... I don't think I have any protected iTunes files left, though, so I don't recall the name.)

The iTunes Store does offer an option to "upgrade" your protected (DRM'd) purchases to non-protected tracks for .30 (USD, don't know if it's a different price in the Canadian iTunes store). The new files are of a substantially higher audio quality so you are getting something more than just an unlocked file for your money, which may also make it worth your while. When they first launched this feature the option to upgrade your library was an all or none option, a very expensive proposition for people who had purchased large quantities of music from the iTunes Store. They have since changed that so you can opt to upgrade one album or even one track at a time, thus skipping stuff that you might not care about. It's worth mentioning that you can authorize up to five computers to play your protected iTunes purchases, so you could just forget about unlocking your stuff altogether (you can also deauthorize computers, so you free up a slot if you stop using a machine).

Using the burn to audio CD then rip to iTunes method does indeed strip the DRM but it also degrades the audio quality somewhat each time you convert the file from one format to another. I know at least some software packages that strip DRM employ a similar methodology, essentially burning your files to a virtual CD and then ripping them to iTunes, thus resulting in the same file degradation. Depending on how much of an audiophile you are, it may be worth your while to upgrade your library via the iTunes Store.

Regarding sharing, it's already been mentioned that turning on sharing in iTunes should solve your problem. The source computer should allow sharing. The other computer(s) should look for shared libraries (these are separate settings on the Share tab of the iTunes preferences). The location of your media files (on a Linux box) shouldn't matter. iTunes on the primary computer is essentially streaming media to the secondary computer, so it's pretty much the same as playing the media directly on the primary computer.

I have no idea how to help you with the network issue, especially since it is a Windows network (although a switch on your network shouldn't make a difference), but sharing in general shouldn't be a problem, since it is listen only (a bit like listening to the radio. You can listen but you can't copy/keep what you listen to).

Thinking about your networking issue a bit more... Can your two windows machines see each other over your network? If not, this may be the source of your problem. I know very little about how to change that. I did help someone straighten out a network sharing issue several years ago, but found all of my answers by searching google, so I would say start there. You'll probably want to start with the usual suspects, check your file sharing and firewall settings (if any) on each machine.

That is weird. Well, there's only one thing left to do then. Call an exterminator because you obviously have an infestation of Network Gremlins.

All kidding aside, here are a couple of links to articles that may or may not be useful to you depending on your setup and what you've already tried.

Straight from the House of Jobs: iTunes for Windows: Music Sharing With Windows Internet Connection Firewall

An awesome Lifehacker article: Hack Attack: Share your iTunes music library over your home network. I *puffy heart* Lifehacker. They have the best geeky advice.