Creative Centrale – for the Creative Zen X-Fi2 mp3 player

Okay, let’s just start out by saying that I am VERY DISAPPOINTED in Creative.  I’ve owned a prior Creative external sound card, have a replacement Creative external sound card, and fell in love with their Creative Zen mp3 player.  It was small, fit in the palm of my hand for jogging, played mp3s and avi video files.  It was limited in the types of files it could play, but after you got all the software loaded up, you could literally click and drag right into the player, and it would even convert some video formats for you.

Well, nothing lasts forever.  I think something got loose inside the player, and one day it stopped working.  So, I trashed it, and seriously considered buying the successor mp3 player, the Creative Zen MX.  Just like the original, but reviews of it made me a little wary of it.  The cost was just right, too, $79.99 for a 16GB player.

But I went for the Creative Zen X-Fi2 player.  (I passed on the X-Fi, even though it seems to have LAN/WiFi capabilities.)

Well, the software you’re supposed to use, the “Creative Centrale”, sucks ass.  It’s one of the most counter-intuitive pieces of shit I’ve ever dealt with, you’d think the broom-up-their-asses programmers at Germany’s SAP general ledger software co. wrote this buggy piece of shit.

One major problem, besides the lack of counter-intuitive interface:  If your external hard drive folder has tens of thousands of mp3s, etc., this thing will CHOKE — HARD!   Here’s the solution:

First things first, make sure you have updated the firmware for the player and the software for Creative Centrale.  Creative requires Internet Explorer 5.5 or better to access their website and have it check your system for the latest and greatest versions of this software.  Do what you gotta do, make sure your software is up to date.   Re-boot after this is all done, as it will ask you to do.

Okay.  Now create a separate folder on your external hard drive, call it G:/Transfer.  In this folder you will copy into it those mp3, picture  and video files you will want to copy into your Zen X-Fi2 player.

In Creative Centrale, go to the top, click on the “Gear/Cog”, which is the “Go to Settings” dialog box.   Here, you go to “Library/Watch Folders”, and then add-in G:/Transfer as an option for it to look for mp3s, pics, and videos.  Then, make sure you go to “Import Options”, and, for mp3s, pics and videos, you make the default ripper folder be the same folder for all 3, G:/Transfer.

See, Creative Centrale, unlike the previous transferring software that came with the original Creative Zen mp3 player, which was FUCKING PERFECT, chokes on folders that have too many files.  It just plain chokes.

Now that you’ve copied into G:/Transfer what you want to move into your mp3 player, up at the top, left-hand side of Creative Centrale, you’ll see “Album”.  Click this open, highlight what you want to copy over into the player, and then go to the very top of Creative Centrale and click “Transfer — Zen X-Fi2”.  And let it do its thing.  It takes a while.  Do not try to load in too many files at once.

Warning:  These idiots made separate tabs for mp3s, pics and videos in Creative Centrale.  STU-PID!!!!!  STU-PID!!!  COUNTER-INTUITIVE!  Your transfer software worked JUST FINE for the original Creative Zen mp3 player, WHY DID YOU SCREW IT ALL UP?????????????  You have to visit each tab just to deal with mp3s vs pics vs videos.  STU-PID!!!!!

As for Buyer’s Remorse, you’re out of luck.  No phone number for Customer Service on Creative’s website, just an e-mail address.  And from the complaints I’ve read on it, and elsewhere, you are S – O – L.

I hope this helps.  Cheers.