iTunes 7.2 – the spawn of Satan!

No this is not an exaggeration! If I were the Church Lady you’d being hearing Saaatttaaaannnn! Right here; right now.

Gentlemen; fatch your computers!

It started small, and ended up big; all I did was tell Apple Update to go ahead and run itself, and update my version of iTunes. Way wrong idea! I started with the 7.1.6 Security Update. It ran. It installed. It said it still needed it. Hmmm… sorta odd. So I tried it again. No joy. So then I tried to simply download the latest version of iTunes, and reinstall it. the installer fails. I try to uninstall my current version. The installer fails.

By now I’m starting to get a wee bit nervous, just what in the name of Sam Hill am I supposed to do now? Scour the intarweb of course. Off I go. Luckily for me, I am not the only hapless traveler on the intrepid ship iTunes – and we are all having massive issues with this steaming pile of digital poo called iTunes 7.2.

Hundreds of posts by users having serious problems, and many going unanswered, which is where I was quickly heading. This is how it progressed:

1. Update iTunes
2. update fails
3. reinstall iTunes
4. install fails with fatal error
5. uninstall iTunes
6. uninstall fails with fatal error
7. scour dozens of threads and posts.
8. Download the Windows Installer Clean up utility
9. Manually remove all folders referencing iTunes & Quicktime
10. Run the clean up tool and remove iTunes & Quicktime bits
11. Download old version of iTunes
12. Reinstall iTunes 7.1.1
13. iTunes fails to open
14. uninstall iTunes
15. Manually edit registry
    Day 2
16. create a new user account to rule out profile errors
17. ruled out profile errors, iTunes still fails
18. uninstall iTunes
19. remove user account
20. swear
• a lot
• undermybreathbecausethekidsareawake…..

At this point I noticed that the Quicktime icon appeared briefly in the task tray.WTF? It’s listed as uninstalled. So quicktime never really uninstalled it at all – or failed to load it properly while iTunes reinstalled. Okay, I guess, now I download the latest version of QuickTime without iTunes, and reinstall it. I also downloaded a little gem called myuninstaller which I found on Scott Hanselman’s blog.

Huzzah!

I finally get Quicktime to initialize and run, so I reinstalled iTunes 7.1.1 and w00t! w00t! it finally worked! OMFG! That was a huge pain in the arse, and needless to say, the Apple updater is not on my machine any longer. One thing I almost forgot to mention is that I had to download and install the Windows Script, since VB is required by the clean up utility.

I was almost to the point to where I thought I was going to have to reinstall Windows. Gah! I’m so glad I don’t have to jerk with that too. This was the first major problem I’ve had with iTunes, and it was a doozy. I probably spent 5 to 6 hours playing grab ass with iTunes, Windows, Apple  forum posts, and various blog entries.

Long story short

If you have had this pox placed upon your computer, uninstall if you can. If you can’t, physically remove all of the files and folders relating to iTunes and Quicktime; making dang sure you don’t delete all your iTunes music in the process! Then download and run the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.

Double check your work and make sure the folders are all gone, do a search for iTunes and Quicktime – delete with extreme prejudice. Again, don’t ace your tunes dodo, if you do don’t blame me. If you decide to open regedit, do so with caution, and backup your registry first.

Restart your machine and reinstall Quicktime and iTunes – Quicktime first, then iTunes. Open iTunes and pray it worked.

Needless to say there is not a 7.2 iTunes upgrade in my future!