Tech lament, who are the iDiots behind iTunes for Windows 7?

Well, yesterday was a Sunday I'll never get back, wasted fighting iTunes on Windows 7. Or rather, fighting to get iTunes to work on Windows 7.

Doesn't anyone at Apple test their software?

Sophie's PC "upgraded" iTunes from V8.mumble to V10.5. And it disapeared.

Oh, we could see iTunes in Task Manager. But not on the screen.

10 seconds with Google assured me it wasn't something stupid that I did. Lots of other people have reported the same problem, and it's been going on for years. Apple's response?

Buy a new PC.

OK, not really. But that would have been easier.

Manually uninstall every Apple application. Of which there are approximately 729,411 of them running in the background. Reboot a half-a-gazillion times. Nuking some iDiocy called "Bonjour" was particularly annoying.

Then reinstall iTunes. Reinstall Quicktime. And finally, here's the best part. Really, the absolutely best part. Open MS Internet Explorer. Go into the internet options. Turn on "use a proxy server." Go right back in and turn off "use a proxy server." Reboot.

And Voila! iTunes starts up "correctly."

Almost. If you don't have Administrator privilege when you plug in the iPod it hangs the PC and you gotta reboot.

Sigh.

I didn't bother tracking that problem down. Apple's support website was "offline for scheduled maintenance." Really. That's what it said on Sunday night.

I gave Sophie Administrator privilege.

And then we discovered that since we'd uninstalled iTunes she had to "reauthorize" her PC for the iTunes store, and we'd already "authorized" 5 PCs and there is no fucking way in Heaven to find out which PCs are actually "authorized," all you can do is de-authorize all of them and start over.

I went over to my office PC to check iTunes (maybe it was "authorized?"), and iTunes didn't start up.

I hope they heard my screams all the way out in Cupertino.

Actually I think Apple purposely makes iTunes on Windows this convoluted so people will give up and buy a Mac. Does that work? Not for me.

I already loathed Apple with every fiber of my being. This waste of a day didn't make me upgrade my opinion of their products. If Tammy hadn't won this stupid iPod at a church auction I'd never have bought one for Sophie. I'm not about to shell out thousands of dollars for one of their fan boi wet dreams.

Because truthfully, I don't know why people put up with this shit.

UPDATE 14 Feb 2012 09:03:
Linked by Doug Ross. Thanks!

Posted at 09:17 by Chris Wysocki   [/tech]   Comments | Perm Link |
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