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Ok, moving your itunes from one computer to another without losing your ratings, play count, playlists etc is really really easy. All you require is;
- a external harddrive/USB that can transfer your music from one to the other
- a little bit of know how.

The quick version:

1) Copy all your music from one computer to the other INTO THE EXACT SAME FOLDER(s)!

2) Copy the iTunes folder from your “My Documents/Music/” folder (or equivilant) onto the new computer (replacing it).

3) Enjoy.

The detailed explanation if you got confused by the above:

1) copy all your music in the exactly same folder as you had it on your old computer.
I have all my music in C:\music, and it has many sub folders because thats how I add lots of songs at once, so copy the entire contents of C:\Music onto your storage device so that it looks exactly the same. Then you create the exact same folder on the new computer. What this does is trick itunes into thinking nothing has changed.

ie if you have a song located at C:\Music\Matchbox 20 Songs\Matchbox 20 – Bent.mp3
you make sure you have the “Matchbox 20 – Bent.mp3″ file in the
C:\Music\Matchbox 20 Songs\ folder on the new computer.

Seriously it was as easy as dragging and dropping C:\music onto a harddrive.

2) Copy the iTunes library files

By default, iTunes saves all of its files in C:\[USER NAME/COMPUTER NAME]\My Documents\Music\iTunes

Copy that entire file. It has all your ratings, play counts, and any music your copied off CDs via iTunes.

3) Install iTunes onto the new computer

Install and then locate the new iTunes system folder (usually the same as above). Just remember it will always be in the main My Documents\Music folder.

Then delete all of the iTunes folder and replace it with the old one.

Then load iTunes and DONE.

Enjoy.

If all of your songs come up as “cannot locate” error, make sure you have put the files into exactly the same location as they were on the old computer.

I was freaking out because I thought I’d have to manually go through all of my songs, when I realised that I didn’t have my old songs in:

c:\music\

but actually:

c:\music\music\

*phew*