Once you've selected the files you want, you can simply drag and drop them to any location on your computer. This can be the Desktop, a folder on your computer in the left pane of Explorer, or another open Explorer window.

In this method, because of the way Windows handles drag and drop, Dudebox must first copy the files from your Jukebox to a temporary folder on your computer. Once the transfer is complete, Dudebox signals Windows to copy the files from the temporary folder to the final destination.

The temporary folder used for transfers to your computer is called "tx2pc" and is found under the main Dudebox Explorer temporary folder, the location of which you can view and change under the "General" tab in the Configuration dialog. Remember that whichever hard disk you put your temporary folder on needs to have enough space to accomodate the transfers you plan to make. If your temporary folder and the destination folder are on the same hard disk, that disk will need twice as much free space as the total size of the files to be transferred.

A consequence of Windows' drag and drop mechanism is that if one of the files cannot be copied to the final destination, say because a file with the same name already exists, Windows will abort the whole transfer. If you had transferred a lot of files, this could be annoying. If this happens, you can still access the files in the temporary folder, which will remain there until the next transfer.

Due to the limitations of drag and drop described here, we recommend that you normally use the following alternative method of transferring files to your computer, "Copy to Computer".

This is the preferred method of transferring files from your Jukebox to your computer. Unlike drag and drop, "Copy to Computer" bypasses the temporary folder and transfers files directly to their destination on your computer. As a result, it is faster, does not require any temporary overhead space on your hard disk, and mimimizes complications.

To use this method, select the files you want, right-click, and select "Copy to Computer...". Dudebox then displays a dialog where you select the transfer destination. Click "OK" and the transfer begins. Dudebox also remembers the target folder you choose and makes it the default location for the next transfer.

Recall from Section 4 that the Jukeboxes organize audio content by tag information only, and essentially discard the original filename the file had when it was on your computer. As a result, Dudebox must synthesize a new filename using the tag information for each audio file that you transfer back to your computer. Note that this does not apply to data files stored on the Jukebox. In the case of data files, the filename as stored on the Jukebox is used.

Dudebox makes this filename synthesis process totally customizable. Go to the "Jukebox" tab in the Configuration dialog. Here you can define a template string that tells Dudebox exactly how you would like it to construct filenames from the available tag information. You simply type out a string of text into which you can embed various "tokens". Dudebox replaces these tokens with the appropriate tag data for each file. The tokens Dudebox recognizes are:

• %A - Artist
• %L - Album
• %N - Track Number
• %T - Track Title
• %C - Codec, or filetype extension (mp3, wma, or wav)
• %Y - Year
• %G - Genre

You can insert whatever other text you want to be part of every filename, with the proviso that it must consist of only valid Windows filename characters. The characters that are illegal in Windows filenames are:

: * ? " < > |

Please note that these illegal characters are automatically removed from the final filename generated from your tag fields. The following is the default format string and an example of the kind of filename it would produce:

%A - %L - %N - %T.%C
Britney Spears - Oops - 02 - Stronger.mp3

If the target file already exists, Dudebox replaces it with a new copy transferred from your Jukebox.

Some people like to keep their music organized by artist and album folders, and want matching folders automatically created when transferring files to their computer using Dudebox. Using the format strings, this is simple to do. Please note again that this only applies to audio files on Jukebox models.

To generate folder structures, just insert back-slashes into the format string. The folders defined by the format string will be created relative to the copy destination. For example, the following format string will produce the following results when a file is copied to "C:\Music" and "D:\Burn2CD":

%A\%L\%N - %T.%C
C:\Music\Britney Spears\Oops\02 - Stronger.mp3
D:\Burn2CD\Britney Spears\Oops\02 - Stronger.mp3

The various Jukebox Jukebox models come out of the box with music tracks pre-installed by Creative. Some people ask whether they can transfer these files to their computer. Unfortunately, these files (probably due to licensing issues) are locked and cannot be transferred to the computer using Dudebox Explorer or any other software. You simply have to enjoy them on the Jukebox.

Locked tracks are marked by a lock icon in Dudebox Explorer.

If you select such a locked track for transfer to your computer, it will simply be skipped during the transfer process.

If you run into problems transferring files back to your computer, the following information may be helpful.

Stop playback first.

Another good step to take when encountering a transfer problem (particularly with drag and drop) is to delete the Dudebox temporary folder and allow it to be re-created by Dudebox. You can find the temporary folder by looking under the "General" tab of the Configuration dialog. To do this, first close all Dudebox Explorer windows and Dudebox Manager in the systray. Then delete the temporary folder, and restart Dudebox Manager and re-open Dudebox Explorer.