After reading several web pages, i found a working solution for using iTunes with a central music collection. The typical wish is to store all MP3 files on a SMB share, and let the different computers access the same iTunes library.

Changing the location of the MP3 storage is supported by iTunes, but it still maintains the music index on the local machine. This leads to the effect that one user can add new files with his iTunes installation, which are then not visible on the other installations, even though the new files are physically accessible.

The solution for this issue is based on the fact that iTunes uses one of the Windows special folders, called “My Music”, to store the user-specific index file. With TweakUI from the Windows PowerToys, you can change the location of the “My Music” folder. So, the following worked for me. We assume that you start with a local iTunes library and some accessible network share:

• Close iTunes.
• Create a new folder “music” on your network share, and move all your MP3 files to this folder.
• Start iTunes, and change the music location to the network folder. Make sure that iTunes stores new and imported files also in this folder. Let iTunes reindex everything.
• Create a new folder “index” on your network share, which will hold the index files.
• Close iTunes, and move the remaining content of your current “My Music” folder to this network folder. For me, it were only the files “iTunes Music Library.xml”, “iTunes Library.itl” and the folder “Album Artwork”.
• Use TweakUI to change the location of “My Music” to the “index” network folder. (“My Computer->Special Folders” option in TweakUI)
• Start iTunes, it should look like before. It takes some time to start and stop the application, since everything is now on the network. Try to avoid parallel access from two iTunes instances. This demands a real iTunes compatible streaming server in the net.

It may also work with a mixed MacOS / Windows network, since the index files are claimed to be compatible. Please, drop a comment if you tried it …