With the introduction of iTunes 8, Apple removed a few settings from the application to simplify the preferences panel. Although most people won’t even notice that they’re gone or wouldn’t necessarily miss them even if they did know, there are probably those who consider at least one of the vanished preferences a deal breaker for them.
Among those missing from the latest version are whether or not to display the genre column in the iTunes Browser, the ability to hide or show links to take you to the iTunes Store, playing songs while they’re being imported or converted, and loading complete iTunes Store previews before playing them for people using slower Internet connections.
If the disappearance of any of those concerns you, hop over to the mothership where Rob Griffith’s has jotted down the Terminal commands for each of the settings mentioned above. The single line ‘true’ and ‘false’ commands for tweaking hidden preferences ought to be pretty familiar with if you’ve been reading MacUser for any length of time.
If you’re on Windows, however, they won’t be of much help. Well, fear not, soldier, because over at his personal blog, Ocram has a couple of tricks for you that will help you disable at least two of the aforementioned features—the genre column in the iTunes Browser and the iTunes Store links. Wanna do the rest? Switch to a Mac. Just kidding.
No, seriously, switch to a Mac.
You write: "Among those missing from the latest version are whether or not to display the genre column in the iTunes Browser"
In Browser mode, I select View --> View Options and Genre is there to select or not!
or I right-click on a column header and check/uncheck Genre.
@Albert, that turns off the Genre column in the listing, not the browser. The browser always shows Genre, Artist, and Album columns in iTunes 8 (unless you use the command line to change the pref). Some people want only Artist and Album (they have both kinds of music).
Oddly, the addition of the Genius feature seems to lessen the need for genre listings. I used to select a genre and set iTunes (or my iPod/iPhone) to shuffle. Now I can get even better selections with a Genius playlist.