I had my first “PlaysForSure” experience last night with Windows Media Player 10 and my Creative Zen Touch. I was browsing the downloads available for the Zen Touch the other day and came across a firmware update that added support for Microsoft’s PlaysForSure. What exactly is it? Here is the marketing fluff from Microsoft:

Choose your music. Choose your device. Know it’s going to work.

When your device and music service are compatible with each other, all you have to do is choose the music that’s compatible with you. Look for the PlaysForSure logo on a wide selection of devices and music stores.

Essentially for me it means I can plug the Zen Touch into any Windows XP machine and not have to install any drivers. Additionally I can use Windows Media Player 10 for transferring music and playlists, meaning I no longer need extra software. Considering I only use WMP10, this is great!

Everything worked perfectly for me. The only complaint I have is about transferring playlists – it is not immediately clear that you need to setup a sync for playlists. When WMP10 opens up, your media is on the left and your device on the right. Choosing a playlist and clicking Sync does not create a playlist on the device, it only copies the music! You need to setup the sync in order to have playlists transfer as well – minor step, but not immediately intuitive.

Seems to me that Microsoft has made excellent progress on the software side of things. Now if only they (and their partners) could produce a device as desirable as the iPod!

Read: PlaysForSure