There seems to be a lot of confusion out there regarding what exactly “reserved space and content from other computers (if any)” is, how content on your Zune device gets into this state, and how to deal with it. Hopefully this post will clear up exactly what this is and how to manage it. As always, I welcome your comments and feedback. <ducks> J

There are a number of ways content can get into this “reserved space and content from other computers (if any)” state. I’ll try to explain…

Let’s say you are in “sync all” mode, then switch to “I choose” mode*. Any content you sync’d to the device in sync all mode will effectively be marked as “guest content” or “content from other computers (if any)” when you switch to I choose mode. It’s not that this content is no longer on your device or is something you would want to delete, it actually is the content on your device, it’s just that the software is no longer managing it for you. Otherwise, if you switched from sync all mode, to I choose mode, and the content was not treated this way (or what we call “guestified”), the software would delete the content from the device since it no longer has any sync rules backing the content. This is due to the nature of sync in that there needs to be parity between the local collection and the device. If there are no sync rules backing the content, the software will delete it (meaning if you delete it from the collection, it’s also deleted from the device).

The Sync modes and rules break down like this:

Sync all mode: Sync rule is to sync all content within this container type (music, vids, pics, etc). If the content is deleted from the collection, it is deleted from the device.

I choose mode: Sync rules are created by the user at time of sync. If a user syncs an artist, album, song, genre, playlist, etc; a rule is created that facilitates the sync and management of that content on the device. If the rule or the content is deleted from the collection, it is deleted from the device.

Manual sync mode: No rules are created. Content will not be sync’d or deleted unless the user choose to do so

Guest partnership mode: No rules are created. Content will not be sync’d or deleted unless the user chooses to do so.

So, changing it to “content from other computers (if any)”, means it’s effectively “guestifying” content that we no longer manage, and prevents deletion of the content (note the “if any” statement). If you were to sync more content after switching modes, it will start to show up as music in the gas gauge as you would expect (which is why sometimes you might see music taking up only 8mb, when you have much more). Similarly, if you were to switch back to sync all mode, the software would “hijack” the content back to the managed mode, and any matching content in your collection would then be converted from “content from other computers (if any)” and shown as music again in the gas gauge area. Because now that we know of the music and can match it all back up with your collection, we can show it properly in the gas gauge. If you want to stay in I choose mode after switching from sync all, the same effect can be achieved by simply selecting all of the content and then resyncing it all back to your device. In this case we will recreate rules to back the content on the device and “hijack” it back in that manner, and it will then be shown properly in the gas gauge. Note that you can also reformat your device and resync, but just resyncing (it won’t really sync it twice, it will just recreate the rules) it after changing modes will recreate the rules and show the content in the gas gauge properly again.

Another way this can happen is if you connect your device as a guest on another computer and sync content to the device. When you reconnect it to your home machine, the software doesn’t have any rules governing that content, so it shows it as content from other computers (which it actually is in this case). Again, this is done so we don’t delete the content (remember, we don’t know where it came from, so we don’t want to touch it). If you go to device > music (or vids, pics, etc), you’ll see the content there and can reverse sync or delete it.

Another spin on that is that if you connect your device to another PC and choose to take over the partnership there (link the device to the other PC). When you reconnect to your home machine (or the one that it was previously linked to) it will show all of the content as “content from other computers”. Because the partnership was cleared when you connected to the other machine, so when you connect back, we “guestify” the content so that we don’t delete it. This is because, to the software, this is a new device that it does not have a relationship with (although you know better and that you just connected it elsewhere). To note, the same thing would happen if you deleted your Zunestore.sdf file (zune database). Because then, similar to above, the device partnership would be cleared, and the device content would be seen as guest content.

If you use audiobooks, the audiobook content will be shown as reserved space or content from other computers as well. Again, since it’s sync’d from a source other than the software, we show it there in the gas gauge. The difference here being that we don’t show the audiobooks in the device view of the software at all, so you can’t see them or take action using the software.

Note that there will always be some space that cannot be used, and that really is reserved space, this is for the firmware on  the device, games, etc.

So, long story short (too late) it really breaks down into these parts:

Reserved space: This is just what it says it is. Space for the firmware, games, etc

Content from other computers: Content sync’d while in guest mode on another machine, or audiobooks that were sync’d with audible

(if any): Content that is still on your device, but has effectively become “guestified” by switching sync modes, taking over a partnership on another machine, or deleting the Zune database.

Bottom line is that content in this state is still on your device, it’s just in a state that the software is not fully aware of or managing. It doesn’t hurt anything to have it in this state, because in reality, it’s still on your device, it’s just the gas gauge that is “misreporting” the space usage (in some cases). So, if it’s bugging you, switch from I choose mode, back to sync all mode, or select everything and resync it(again it won’t sync it twice, it just recreates the rules). In either case the content will be updated in the gas gauge to show properly. And in all cases (except audiobooks), you can view, delete, and reverse sync all of the content on your device (guestified, or not), by connecting the device, going to the device view, and clicking on the various nodes for music, videos, pictures, etc.

Clear as mud? J Hope that helps…

Cheers! 

-Matt

 *Note the same thing will happen in manual sync mode, I just used I choose mode for the example