To run FM, simply left click on the note in your system tray, and enter your friend's username.  The system tray is in the lower right hand corner of your screen where the time is displayed.   If this is the first time you are accessing a particular friend's collection, it will ask you for their SHARE password.  Note that once you enter your friend's share password, FM will remember it and you do not have to enter it again. Also, FM will keep a list of all the friend's whose collection you have accessed in a dropdown window.  You can save the effort of typing in your friend's name just by clicking on the down arrow and clicking on your friend's name.

Note that YOUR username, YOUR account password and YOUR share password can be accessed by right clicking on the FM note and selecting "About" in case you forget them.

Within seconds, you will see a "tree" detailing your friend's entire collection.  Here is a sample tree:

The user interface of "the tree" is similar to that of Windows Explorer.  If you see a plus sign (+) in the far left corner, that means the entry can be expanded.  Note that playlists are highlighted in blue and CDs are highlighted in yellow.  Press the plus sign next to either a CD or playlist will show (expand) its contents.

To select a track, simply click the box to the left of the track until a check mark appears.  Check off all the tracks, CDs and playlists you wish to be transferred and then press the "Begin Transfer" button.  A dialog box will then display and detail the progress of your transfer.

FM makes its best effort not to show you tracks that you have previously rejected, which is helpful when browsing very large collections.  Just to be sure, you can press "Show Previously Viewed Tracks" to see everything, including rejected tracks.  Note that tracks you already possess will not be displayed in the tree.

FM preferences

To view your preferences screen, right click on the note and select the second menu item.

You can change songs directory here if you wish by pressing the browse button.

Set the playlist indicator to match your MP3 player e.g., M3U for MusicMatch.  FM is intelligent enough to convert playlists from other players to the format you select.  Note that if you are sharing playlists, they MUST be in your songs directory.  For some MP3 players like RealOne, you have to export the playlist to your songs directory.  In RealOne this involves right clicking on the playlist.

Press the Rescan button if you load some new songs and you wish your friends to view them immediately.  Also press it if you change your songs directory.  Note that a rescan automatically occurs every day at 4:00 AM and when FM is started.

The "Allowed number of tracks per transfer" is basically to force your friends to show a little discretion in choosing CDs, tracks and playlists.  In the early days of FM, people often just selected everything in a collection, and then let it transfer for days on end!  This limit at least makes them be a little more choosy...

If you are interested in seeing the IP address and tracks that your friends are taking, check the "Write activity log to log.txt file".  You will find log.txt in your FM directory e.g., C:\Program Files\Friends and Music\log.txt.

FM normally uses port 55317 to facilitate transfers.  It is unlikely that you will ever have to change this unless you run more than one FM on a network.  In that case, please ensure that each FM has a unique port number.

Troubleshooting

FM has a very elegant and simple architecture and there are only two reasons you and your friend won't be able to connect:  firewalls and port forwarding.

To get FM running, make sure both you and your friend turn your firewalls off.  XP has a built in firewall that can be turned off by right clicking on Network neighborhood, right clicking your your network card that connects to the internet, selecting properties and then go to the "Advanced" tab.  Make sure the Internet Connection Firewall is unchecked.

Most other firewalls, like BlackIce, are visible in your system tray.  Just right click and shut it off for the time being.

Once you get your FM connection going, you can then set up a Service Definition for the firewall for FM - tell it that FM uses port 55317.

If you or your friend is on a network, you must forward port 55317 to the local IP address of your friend's machine.  For example, if your friends local IP is 192.168.1.102 and they are using a Linksys router, goto the Linksys status page, click the advanced button, then port forwarding, and make an entry to forward port 55317 to 192.168.1.102.

If you're really stuck, feel free to email us at support@friendsandmusic.com