iTunes 8 and Vista a deadly combination
We’re yet to see an episode of the ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC’ ads end with PC beaten into unconsciousness. So for now we’ll have to stick with the latest edition of iTunes reportedly causing widespread terminal crashes for Vista users.
The problem first surfaced two days ago with a post on Apple’s support forum. That’s now attracted hundreds of replies and it’s become clear it’s not an isolated issue. It’s affecting users on both the 32bit and 64bit editions of Vista.
For those affected, installing iTunes version 8 appears to cause the infamous ‘Blue Screen of Death’ upon plugging in an iPod or iPhone. For those who’ve never had the pleasure, the blue screen means your computer is frozen so solidly that you must restart your machine with no way of saving any open files.
Apple is aware of the problem and is looking into potential fixes. The most commonly held theory is that there’s an incompatibility between Vista and a USB driver that’s part of the iTunes 8 software package.
Some users have reported they’ve fixed the problem by disconnecting USB devices, most notably HP printers and Logitech input devices.
If this doesn’t fix the problem, there are a couple of software solutions which appear to work. If you have access to another Vista machine running iTunes 7, you can simply go into your system32/drivers folder and copy across the file usbaapl.sys to the same place on your own machine, then reinstall iTunes 8.
Another option is to disconnect your iPod or iPhone, uninstall Apple Mobile Device Support through the Control Panel, restart your machine, download the installer for iTunes 7.7, open the file with WinZip or WinRAR and then reinstall AppleMobileDeviceSupport.MSI (but no other components). Another restart should now let you run iTunes 8 without problems.
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September 11th, 2008
Good info, I wasn’t aware of this…this info needs to get out.
September 11th, 2008
The best solution of all is to not install iTunes 8 until Apple fixes it.
September 12th, 2008
Installing AppleMobileDeviceSupport.MSI from iTunes 7.7 worked for me. No more BSOD
September 13th, 2008
First time I plugged in my ipod after installing iTunes 8, the whole system locked up hard (Vista 64) and a cold boot was required (no BSOD though). After the restart everything was fine. No issues here, guess maybe I was lucky (knock on laminate).
September 14th, 2008
Before reading this post, I recently installed Itunes 8 on a vista 32 bit system followed a couple days later with iphone software 2.0.2 > 2.1. Not that other people haven’t, but I fortunately have not experienced any problems yet. Reconnecting of Iphone does not freeze computer as of yet. I also have multiple usb devices including logitech / HP devices attached to my computer. I definitely would been more cautious had I read this post first. “breaths a sigh of relief”