A Query

Some iTunes users alias or symlink their entire [username]/Music/iTunes directory to an external drive in the interest of freeing-up drive space. First of all, if you want to free up drive space, you can certainly move your iTunes Music folder off-drive, but aliasing the entire [username]/Music/iTunes directory off drive is frowned upon by Apple. While it may appear that this procedure works just fine, here may be an example of why it really does not.

Background: The preference file "com.apple.iApps.plist" keeps track of the XML file for the most recently loaded iTunes library. In turn, the XML file contains not only track and playlist information, but also the location of the iTunes Music folder for that library.

A Correspondent who has aliased his [username]/Music/iTunes directory to an external drive noticed this phenomenon: if he opened an iTunes multiple library stored locally, the iApps.plist file was updated correctly; if he opened an iTunes multiple library stored elsewhere, the iApps.plist was not updated at all.

Let me note that I have tried this (my [username]/Music/iTunes directory is where it is supposed to be) and my iApps.plist gets updated correctly no matter where I save a multiple library.

The query: if you have aliased you [username]/Music/iTunes in a similar manner, do you notice the same phenomenon? (You can view the iApps.plist file with "Property List Editor" if you have Developer Tools installed or simply by dragging it to TextEdit.)