New Nokia PC Suite out, with Music focus
Nokia’s PC software for phone owners has been updated to version 6.8, and it’s called the Music release. There are numerous big and little changes, but the most notable is redesigned Nokia Music Manager (click on the image below to get a bigger view).
If you are using PC Suite, go and update. Otherwise, why not give it a go? For me PC Suite used to be a pain, but that was a long time ago. I use the Synchronise feature daily, and with this latest version I got the feeling it is a bit faster than earlier. One cool feature of the new Music manager is the ability to notice if your phone supports eAAC+, making ripped music smaller in size without loosing any of the quality.
After downloading, give your comments, you never know who is reading! 
Nokia PC Suite version 6.8
It’s been a great surprise for me since I can’t remember what was the latest version I used of Nokia PC suite, but it was for sure very very different that this (in the bad way). So good work.
And if this is the music edition, when do you plan to release the wifi edition? It’s a pitty for me with a brand new N80 not being able to connect to the suite via wifi.
It’s also frustrating (in the phone side) not being able to use the wifi nor the upnp with a windows xp pc. Perhaps I’m quite awkward but I’ve only been able to use it for web browsing or mail checking, but not for file transfer between the phone and the pc. They don’t find themselves.
Hi, I cannot answer about wifi in PC Suite since it is not done by S60. I would imagine that is on their list for sure!
Did you install the media server software that came with N80, that’s a good way to utilise UPnP.
From my opinion, the user interface is a little bit strange. It doesn’t look any other Windows applications or other PC Suite applications.
The navigation of the songs is also not as smooth as Windows Media Player or iTunes. I don’t know… may be just my feeling.
Music
Over the last holiday I picked up on a number of bands and albums. To start with, and most surprising, the new Neil Diamond album, 12 Songs: the product of collaboration with producer Rick Rubin, it’s an affecting CD …
Jukka, do you think that it would be possible for Nokia to make the pc suite support and sms support sis files separate? Once I installed PC Suite and selected 1 out of 3 devices it installs 2 sis files to the phone. However, if I use a different phone it doesn’t do that. I’m not even sure how important these files are but I was just wondering.
The Music Player Interface is awesome!! Being able to just have the player convert to AAC is much easier than trying to do it on my own… even though I did follow your instructions from your post
Another atrocious PC Suite release - Teleca should be ashamed of themselves!
So when’s the Mac version coming out?
Wha?
Thanks for the point about the media server software, I initially didn’t looked at it because as it said it was third party software thought it was only some kind of bloatware media player.
And again, related to pc suite I maintain my initial opinion that it’s great specially compared to the last version I saw (1 year ago). But I’m also with Antony Pranata in his opinion of the strange user interface. You at S60 have quite documents for developers about user interface guidelines, how it should all be done, etc, but when you (or nokia) do the pc suite you don’t follow any Windows UI standard and this makes the app looks rare and a little bloat.
All in all, the new audio converter/transferrer doens’t look bad at all.
PS. The media server software isn’t included in the cd, there’s only a link pointing here:
http://www.simplecenter.com/hms_34/
But when you get there and press the download button you get a 404 page error.
So I’ve just downloaded their generic version (not the nokia specific one) and so I don’t know if there’s something different, but for sure the 404 error isn’t what it’s spected to found there.
Darla, Antony, Sirul & all, thanks for feedback so far! I would like to see someone from PC Suite team to join in here, but I’ll at least point them to read the comments!
Jukka, Can you also point whomever is in charge of designing the Music Manager here so they can tell me why it only supports phone models and not additional MP3 hardware such as the Nokia HDR-1 music player (which I’m still using because I refuse to buy an iPod).
The HDR-1 came with its own Music Manager software on a disk but it would be more convenient to use since you can have 2 versions of the same software on a PC.
Jukka, One more thing. Once the phone is connected and even in the settings menu when you select the music to be stored to the MMC the main screen only shows the amount of space left on the phone memory and not the MMC. When selecting the songs that you would like transferred it doesn’t show the size of the selected songs (in total). This was something that I paid careful attention to so that I would know how much memory I would be utilizing. The need to keep that feature.
So PC Suite detected and popped up saying do I want to upgrade. I said yes and it downloaded and began. But then it said there were locks on some if its files and ignore/retry/cancel. I tried retry a few times, no luck, then ignore, no luck, then cancel. It then rolled back, and I have no PC Suite now.
So I went to the site, downloaded (open, not save to disk) and it opened a window “Windows Installer” with just an OK box saying:
—
Windows ® Installer. V 3.01.4000.1823
msiexec /Option [Optional Parameter]
Install Options
Installs or configures a product
/a
Administrative install - Installs a product on the network
/j [/t ] [/g ]
Advertises a product - m to all users, u to current user
Uninstalls the product
Display Options
/quiet
Quiet mode, no user interaction
/passive
Unattended mode - progress bar only
/q[n|b|r|f]
Sets user interface level
n - No UI
b - Basic UI
r - Reduced UI
f - Full UI (default)
/help
Help information
Restart Options
/norestart
Do not restart after the installation is complete
/promptrestart
Prompts the user for restart if necessary
/forcerestart
Always restart the computer after installation
Logging Options
/l[i|w|e|a|r|u|c|m|o|p|v|x|+|!|*]
i - Status messages
w - Nonfatal warnings
e - All error messages
a - Start up of actions
r - Action-specific records
u - User requests
c - Initial UI parameters
m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
o - Out-of-disk-space messages
p - Terminal properties
v - Verbose output
x - Extra debugging information
+ - Append to existing log file
! - Flush each line to the log
* - Log all information, except for v and x options
/log
Equivalent of /l*
Update Options
/update [;Update2.msp]
Applies update(s)
/uninstall [;Update2.msp] /package
Remove update(s) for a product
Repair Options
/f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v]
Repairs a product
p - only if file is missing
o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
a - forces all files to be reinstalled
u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
s - all existing shortcuts (default)
v - runs from source and recaches local package
Setting Public Properties
[PROPERTY=PropertyValue]
Consult the Windows ® Installer SDK for additional documentation on the
command line syntax.
Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.
—
I clicked OK and nothing happened. Ran it again, and it decided to work. Third time lucky! It worked first time on my work machine.
The Music Manuager does indeed have a weird UI. I’d prefer to type in the path to my mp3s in the scan box
than being forced to browse in that weird non-standard file browse box. After scanning, musicmanager.exe used nearly CPU and not responding. Then it would respond but kept using 60-80% CPU. Having one huge list makes it appear very slow to react.
I agree with Sirul about the S60 standards, but then PC standards aren’t followed. If there’s a good reason not to follow them, fine, otherwise it just makes things harder.
Anyway, not had a proper play yet, but Random Transfer sounds good. I hope it doesn’t remain this unresponsive.
PC Suite Gets Updated to the Music Edition
Nokia PC Suite has now been updated to 6.8 for supporting handsets. This version focuses more on Music and with the NSeries devices almost (if not already) being released. The change in the Music Manager other than the newer
Darla, for my N91 it shows the status of hard disk and switches to internal memory if I change it. This might be a bug, if it won’t show memory status of your MMC.
You are correct about selecting songs, I am also missing any info on file sizes. Maybe it is done on purpose, to make it user friendly
About HDR-1, it is an accessory and PC Suite needs to be talking to a phone. I think it was only one of its kind Nokia ever made, so no big chances of getting it supported..
Anyone got a menu item in ‘Options’ which says ‘Get CD Information’ which the Help says should be there. Floated in AAS and someone said that Gracenote should pop up with a registration window when you put a CD in, but it doesn’t happen here. No evidence of pop-ups being blocked, either.
Tim
For me it always recognises automatically, so there is no need to use the option. If I turn off the automatic option, then the menu item becomes active.
This is quite bizarre. The menu item isn’t even visible - not even there and ‘greyed out’. Have you got v 6.80.20? What phone are you using? N90 here.
Tim
I now notice this in the help files… “Some features in Nokia Music Manager are not available for all Nokia phone models. An example of such features is the music recognition service (hosted and owned by Gracenote), from which CD information can be queried.” Obviously they seem to have blocked it for the N90. This seems bizarre as the data exchanges with PC Suite initially, not the phone. So the software on the PC might as well have it, even if it can’t be then sent to the phone - which it can as Music Player on the phone recognises track names.
Oh well, at least I can stop looking and thinking I must be mad now!
Tim
I have N91 and 6.8.20. Is somebody else also missing Gracenote?
Mine also recognizes the cd once I load it but I am missing Gracenote. According to the Help files as Tim stated, there are 5 options under “General Settings” however the program itself only shows 4.
Tim, in this case I don’t think it matters what phone is used because it seems like a stand-alone issue, but for whats its worth I’m using a 6630, 6682 and 6255i.
Hey… what happened to the Image Converter? That was a cool feature to convert wallpaper sizes.
Sirul, there are differences between generic and Nokia version. Hope they fix the link soon so you can try it out.
Thanks all. At least I’m not alone. Perhaps we’re paying the price as ‘early adopters’. Seems like a glaring error to have slipped through, though. And Darla’s right - didn’t notice the Wallpaper thing gone. Tchhh! Mind you it’s arguably easier to do that in Irfanview in any case.
Tim
“At least I’m not alone. Perhaps we’re paying the price as ‘early adopters’. Seems like a glaring error to have slipped through, though.”
But even as early adopters…was there any user testing? if so, who were the test users, were they early adopters, novice users? Glaring errors should be worked through before release, not after and during real-time use.
Hi, I noticed following. I had Nokia 6230i connected, but Gracenote didn’t work in Music Manager. Friend of my connected Nokia 3250 to my PC and we got Gracenote working. AND now it works also with Nokia 6230i. Just GREAT!!
Wendy, this is getting a bit off-topic for S60 but of course you are right. It is also good to note that PC software and smartphone software are quite different things, regarding testing (hardware known vs. not known).
Kenny, well that’s good for you
I suppose that by now Jukka and other users have found this information from other forums but just wanted to share knowledge… PC Suite help says that Gracenote is not availabe with all phones. And it looks like that Gracenote works fine if you have 3250 or N70 - maybe some other “music phone” will also work.
I am having problems with this. the software auto-updated from the version that came on the CD with my n70, now the connection (over USB) to my n70 seems very unreliable. I plug the phone in and windows seems to find it but then the filemanager will tell me the phone is not found and after a while Windows will show the phone as disconnected as well. Any ideas?
Niko asked: “So when’s the Mac version coming out? ;)”
There still is no Mac-version of the PC Suite, but at least the Nokia Music Manager for Mac is out !!!!!
Go to http://www.europe.nokia.com/nokia/0,,87484,00.html and and enjoy the N91 with your Mac
Sirul, the download link is now working!
Thanks for being looking at this Jukka. I’ve installed it and I see no difference between this version (nokia home server 3.4) and simplecenter 4.0. I say this as you also told the nokia custom version had more features.
Anyway, thanks for your attention.
Sirul, I think with the non-Nokia version you cannot push images or videos to PC, and show on there? I haven’t checked in a while, though.
Yes, you can also do that in both versions. Quite laggy but a nice feature for a media center pc. Perhaps in a true UPnP tv device like some new philips LCDs this become to be amusing.
Yes, that’d be cool. In N93 the tv-out feature is faster but needs a cable of course..
Hi all,
i have a nokia E65, trying to connect to nokia suite but when i click on transfer music an error message keeps coming up that its encountering a problem… can anyone help?
I find it bizarre that downloading of track info from gracenote seems to depend on which model of phone you have. All the standalone media players I have used (winamp, musicmatch jukebox etc) have had this functionality for years, as has iTunes.
I don’t understand why I am forced to type all the track info by hand just because I bought an N78 (which is supposed to be a media phone AFAIK). A major black mark on an otherwise good piece of software.