Microsoft just fixed a Zune compatibility issue in the year 2023

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Thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, the Zune is having its biggest year since it, well, died.

Zune lives
(Image credit: Microsoft, Marvel)

Calamity has been avoided, and justice for woefully underappreciated noughties hardware served: Microsoft has fixed an issue in Windows 11 affecting compatibility with the Zune MP3 player. As The Verge noticed in the latest Windows blog, Windows 11's new Insider Preview build includes an update specifically for its long-dead iPod competitor.

Microsoft fixed an issue "that was causing some challenges in getting the original Zune drivers to install in Windows 11," the blog says, "so now it should be easier to use your (totally unsupported and still discontinued) Zune on Windows 11." 

The update isn't quite as random as it might seem, because the Zune recently starred in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as a replacement for Star-Lord's beloved Walkman. In May Microsoft released a video walking users through the rather arcane process of getting a Zune to play nice with Windows in 2023; hopefully this new update will make that process a lot simpler.

The Zune community on Reddit has reacted well to the news.

"Holy ffing shi," writes Redditor Aggravating-Bake3522.

Redditor _killer_elite_ got even more excited: "CANT FACKEN WAIT !!! GONNA UPDATE MY ZUNE HD ARTIST PROFILES !!!!"

The Windows blog notes that the update is currently available in the "Canary" channel of Windows 11—the least stable, most experimental branch—but will "make its way through the Insider Channels and eventually to all Windows 11 customers."

Wes Fenlon
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

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