Introduction

I still use my old Sony Walkman (NW-E405) that I bring to the gym. I don’t want to explode my brand new stuff with some dumbells or whatever.

So, here is the beast:

I almost never used Sony’s software like Sonic Stage or Sony CONNECT, they were way to complicated in my opinion and used a bunch of memory years ago. Instead I’m using MP3 File Manager (v2), easier but doesn’t convert track to ATRAC format.

Happened the mess

Everything worked great out of the box until I did the upgrade to Windows 10. Since that no way to drag & drop tracks with MP3 File Manager. In fact a barred circle show up when I want to transfer them (see below picture).

Fix it

[EDIT 2022/02/13] thanks Dave for sharing the below “method 1)”.

At first, I tried to switch compatibility mods but no way to resolve the issue. Then I found some posts dealing with drag & drop issues with W10.

Method 1)

From MP3 File Manager program properties:

1) Disable Run as Administrator (for all users if applicable)
2) Enable compatibility mode specifically for Windows Vista Serice Pack 2

MP3 File Manager should now run without needing to run as administrator, and drag and drop function will work as a result.

Method 2)

If the problem persists another option is to disable the Windows 10 UAC (User Account Controls) settings.
It’s not perfect and can cause security issues but if you disable entirely this feature it should do the job.

Here is how:

1) Open “regedit” (Start -> Run -> regedit)
2) Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
3) Change “EnableLUA” value data from “1” to “0”

You must restart your computer before the new setting will take effect.

Other issues

Unicode support 1

Actually MP3 File Manager doesn’t support transfer for unicode titled songs — like Japanese characters.

« *notable drawback = does not support unicode. »

To overcome this problem I first tried to find the source code of MP3 File Manager. And I found this C file but I have no idea of the version of the program.

Therefore I’ve been looking for an alternative and after some research I finally came across JSymfonic which seems to be the “successor” of MP3 File Manager. (but already abandoned :cry:)

The documentation for the install is here.

Note: you’ll need to have Java installed on your computer to make it work as it is a .jar program

It’s a pretty good piece of software, you should give it a try if you have some troubles with unicode.

I hope this article helped you to fix the issues you may have. See you next time!

This work around may work with earlier Walkman versions too. Please try it and let me know in the comment section below =)

  1. Thanks to Daniel Kuan who discovered this glitch I wasn’t aware of. ↩