Vista Meets iTunes 7.7, Cat Fight To The Death Ensues
Some people have called me a hypochondriac. Some call em a sensationalist. Other call me dramatic. But those that actually know me, know that I just have really shitty luck.
Like many people that picked up a new iPhone, I was absolutely delighted to install the new version of iTunes, 7.7, as soon as possible so I could take full advantage of my new toy. I've always considered upgrades in iTunes to be relatively pointless, but this time I needed it so my JesusPhone would be able to walk on water, or whatever else it's suppose to do. To my surprise, I was in for a less than happy adventure in iTunes-ery...
After the upgrade, when I opened iTunes, I was greeted with this cute little pop-up box (upper right). And not just once. Once every few seconds. The entire time iTunes was on. I'm not sure how many pop-ups I got that first time, but I do know I got so frustrated I almost through my new iPhone through my monitor.
I jumped on the web and searched for solutions. One gentleman suggested deleting the folder that contained the AppleMobileDeviceHelper, as it would repopulate once you restarted the program. So I did. And it stopped the pop-ups, but it also stopped my ability to sync my frakin' iPhone.
Another person, claiming authority from Apple tech support, posted a more convincing argument. His idea was uninstall ALL things Apple; iTunes, QuickTime, that random piece of software BonJour... all of it. Once done, download the latest version of iTunes to your desktop, then run it as admin. I did that, and it also worked. Worked very well, actually. Well enough that I could spend the next few hours syncing my phone and downloading various apps and all the wonderful, crazy stuff I wanted to do. I thought my journey was complete, but oh no... I was VERY mistaken.
Hit the jump to get the rest of the story
When I got home from work this afternoon, I realized that I had been draining the crap out of my battery watching various YouTube clips on the CTA home. I also wanted to see if any new and interesting apps had hit the store today. I hit my cute little iTunes button to fire up Apple's Money Machine, then disappeared to the bathroom for a few moments. When I returned, not only did I see the villainous AppleDeviceHelper message again, I saw 53 instances of it. 53! Unbelievable.
After another search on the interwebs, I found this article that detailed yet another step I should be taking when I run iTunes. Apparently, by going all the way into the file folders, right clicking iTunes.exe and selecting "Run As Adminstrator," the problem would magically go away. Instead of hitting the shortcuts I have on my desktop, I'm now told that I need to go into the folder and "run as Administrator" every time I want to run iTunes?! Luckily, it worked, but for how long? To find out, I closed out iTunes then reopened it. Lo and behold! The frackin' devil-spawn of error messages resurfaced! This meant that I was going to have to dig into my Program Files EVERY TIME I started iTunes... and that just isn't acceptable.
Back to the intertrons for the final time before I write Apple off as the Satan Spawn of technology, and I revisited an Apple Forum that I looked at in one of my previous searches to see if Cupertino had anything to offer to the discussion. I have to say, I wasn't expecting much, but it seems that Apple's reputation for good support wasn't let down by this issue.
Apple had pinpointed the problem to people running Vista and/or on a Dell and/or on a Comcast network. Any of the three would cause the problem, and (remember I said I'm a person of extremely bad luck) I just happen to be all three... The issue is with a particular software that Dell and Comcast install on computers called SupportSoft. It's not a critical program by any stretch, but if you disable it (or flat out delete it, like I did), it should stop the problem.
So I uninstalled all things Comcast related and SupportSoft related, rebooted my system, and now I'm good to go. The journey, as it is right now, is over. So, yeah.... This has to be one of the biggest debacles I've faced, but I am very happy that Apple jumped on it and found a solution. Ideally, none of their software would conflict with any other software I have running on my system, but hey, at least it's not a mission critical piece of software, so it's not the end of the world either.
Now then, after that rant, if you'll excuse me, I have some more free apps to dig through...
Jesse James
Posted to Miscellany on 14 July 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: Apple, AppleMobileDeviceHelper, Comcast, Dell, iPhone, iTunes, Problems, Rant, Vista
Within one hour of its unboxing, The One became the undisputed ruler of Tiny's entire home. Buy this or despair.
This isn't going to be a "you should just switch to Mac" comment, but it is a "why I switched to Mac" comment.
I used to be a Windows user, but one of the biggest problems with Windows has always been the software that every frickin' company just stuffs onto your machine that's supposed to make your world wonderful. Do they bother to ask? NO! It's just there. (I had a Sony Vaio, and it was installed with all sorts of "helpful" Sony software -- things that would interrupt video playback to inform me that the battery was fully charged! Stuff like that.) We have Dells at work, and they're bloated with stuff like your "SupportSoft." All of this stuff is added on.
If Microsoft kept strict control of what was installed on machines, I have little doubt that the out-of-box experience would be similarly wonderful to the out-of-box experience on a Mac. Steve Jobs' iron fist of control results in a wonderful experience for most consumers. When you start adding stuff to the system, you may get conflicts, but they're usually solvable by a visit to Apple Support.
End of rant.
Glad you got your iTunes going. Doesn't the App store just RULE?!? I have to go now and look at what's new!
:D
Thats why when I get a new computer the first thing I do is re-install a retail version of vista. With vista's nice ability to automatically download most of your drivers in windows update it is a pretty painless process.
To SFDex:
"If Microsoft kept strict control of what was installed on machines, ..."
They did that in the past, and it rightly brought their monopolistic asses to court. They don't get to dictate that OEMs can't install Netscape, Java, or Quicktime; we have antitrust laws about that.
And because of their anticompetitive abuses, they're now completely impotent and can't even be benevolent if the mood strikes. That means Dell can decide to install Gain Gator if they like (which, incidentally, MS once publicly considered buying -- it would fit right in with Alexa.)
"... I have little doubt that the out-of-box experience would be similarly wonderful to the out-of-box experience on a Mac."
Even installing Windows cleanly, its OOBE is notoriously bad. It's not as horrible as a full deck of craplets, but it's still horrible: First there's activation, being bugged about security software and updates (and you'll have to update the updater, install WGA, and several restarts later, have the latest security and a new service pack or two), telling it at least twice that you don't want the Tour, figuring out how to make the desktop icons come back, switching to classic views left and right so you can actually find these options, and just generally changing every default in Folder Options so the system is usable. The Mac OOBE is good because they value clean interface and good defaults over backwards compatibility and customization (which can still be done with other tools). MS, on the other hand, just keeps piling it on.
To the article:
I would always suspect the OS, especially Vista, of having some blame in the problem. Windows 95 used to throw warnings when you installed Quicktime. Not because anything went wrong; just because it was Quicktime:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/5F0C866C-6DDF-4A9A-9515-531B0CA0C29C.html (Heading "Microsoft Sabotages ...")
Based on the text of the error message, it looked like Vista was failing to give authority to a program that needed it (as hardware interfaces always do). The fact that it turned out to be a conflict with an unrelated piece of software just shows how useless most error messages are. In short, don't blame Apple; they're usually very good about following best practices when there are any to follow (which isn't so much the case with Vista given its untested security paradigms.)
I think my comment turned out longer than the article...