If like me you listen to many podcasts, then swapping the PC your Phone7 syncs to collect the podcasta is a real pain. The problem being as far as I can see Zune has no podcast subscription export/import, so you are left with a lot of copy typing to re-enter them.

Whilst rebuilding my PC with Windows 8 today I have at least found a work around

  1. On your old Pc open you ‘c:user[user]My Podcasts’ folder (shown in Windows Explorer as the ‘Podcast’ folder).
  2. You will see a folder for each podcast you are subscribed to
  3. Copy the whole folder to the same location on your new PC (I did via a USB drive as I was reformatting the disk on the same PC)
  4. Install Zune on the new PC
  5. Open Zune and look in the Collection>Podcasts, you should see all your podcast – but your are not subscribed yet
  6. In Zune, highlight and select all podcasts
  7. Right click and you should see  a Subscribe option, select it.
  8. Zune now sorts itself out re-subscribing and checking for new programmes
  9. It gets a bit confused over what you have watched so might pull them down again. Also you might want to alter subscription settings for specific podcasts as it will default back to just 3 programmes.
  10. When you are happy with your settings just drag the podcasts onto your newly resync’d mobile device to finish the job.
  11. You might need to look at the podcasts that are on the device as seems it does not removed one previously there via Zune (again it seems unsure of what you have listened too)

Not perfect but better than trying to removed load of site URLs