HELP!!! I am so FRUSTRATED!!! While we were preparing to switch from Windows 7 to Windows 8 my boyfriend SAVED all of his music that was in iTunes to a portable hard drive. We checked to make sure they were all there and made the switch. Now we are trying to put all the music back onto the DESKTOP and ALL of his music is now in XML format!! We have searched for a converter online but nothing will take it from xlm to mp3. The files were originally music files........ HELP!!!! There are HUNDREDS of songs and dozens of albums. We will never be able to find them all again if we need to start over........I've not really got the best NEWS unfortunately.

XML is a file format that stores lots of text data, not music.  What I imagine this file contains is in fact your library information such as names of songs, their artists.etc and not the music itself.  However, if this music was bought from iTunes themselves you should be able to download it again.

You could try opening this XML file in a text editor like Notepad to view the contents as it may at least give you a list of the tracks that need replaced.