Transferring Your iTunes library - keep playcount/date added!

My computer has been acting a bit odd recently so I thought I'd better back everything up. I was sad because I thought that a backup couldn't save stuff like playcount and the date added in itunes (apprently called metadata). Because I'm super paranoid about my stuff I thought I'd back up my stuff on my computer as well as just my external harddrive and also test to see what itunes data stayed. To my happiness it was identical to the itunes I had copied ^.^

I googled it first and people seemed adamant that tranferring a library was difficult and lots of details would be lost, they mentioned exporting xml files. Well I don't know what they were doing 'cus it was pips to transfer! I went to itunes and exported my library (it created a file called 'library' which is a xml document) and then I copied my entire iTunes folder onto my external harddrive. When you want to tranfer your library to a new computer or your current one 'cus your stuffs gotten deleted just install itunes in the new one (or if its installed already delete everything in the folder, obviously keep what you want to keep I just know I started with a blank folder.. you can always copy the stuff you wanna keep and add it to itunes later). When your itunes folder is copied just click on the library' xml file you made and itunes will open and be identical to your old library, playcounts, date added and (from what I've asertained) all. I think there was already another xml file called 'iTunes Music Library' which was slightly smaller than 'library' - I don't know if this is something I made when messing around earlier or if everyone has it, but I didn't use that. For all I know you don't even need to export an xml file and can use that one. I just know what worked for me.
I tried this Vista to external harddrive to Vista and am about to try it Vista to external harddrive to XP.

So thats
in iTunes