Getting Zune to Drop Those Old Podcasts

This post is really about the Zune program on the computer rather than the Zune HD Player itself.

Let's say you subscribe to a podcast, and you really don't want or need to keep those really old sessions. You've already deleted them from the Zune HD, but you have to scroll through them on Zune to get to the current ones.

You thought you'd get it to work by going into the folder and deleting the old MP3's, but lo and behold when you went back to Zune, there they were but now instead of stating, for example this:

It states this instead:

And when you click on "Download", you get a can't find it or similar message. So how do you get rid of these things?

The answer lies in the "Zune Media Reset Collection Tool"!  You download this exe program from the web and run it.  It essentially goes through your Zune files and dumps the ones it can't find, while leaving your other stuff alone. It wasn't the easiest thing to find, but at least it is what you need.  Here's where to find it.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18470

The tool works by erasing the locations for your podcasts and collections, then going back and rereading all the folders you'd designated as having appropriate files. So don't panic when it first states "collection not found" or similar.

Good luck--hope it helps. It works also for Windows 7 (which is how the author uses it).

Update July, 2013
Unreal...it's gone from the link above. Here's some info about the tool...run it with Zune closed. When you finish, open up Zune and you'll see the program go searching for all the current data.

Update March, 2017
This is a link directly to a folder on Box.com with the program and an intro guide.