Pure Genius: How Apple is killing Windows Vista with iTunes 8

By Davey Winder
Friday, 12 September 2008 17:14

Strategy

Vista was meant to be the end of the notorious Blue Screen of Death. Then Apple launched iTunes 8 this week and now the BSOD is back, and we know who to blame...

Apple launched iTunes 8 at the big Let's Rock event in San Francisco earlier this week. Amongst the exciting new features were a Genius mode to help select the music you like and support for HD television broadcasts. The ability to take down Windows Vista was not so loudly proclaimed.

To be honest, iTunes 8 was not as exciting an upgrade as some were hoping. The much speculated about 'subscription mode' did not make an appearance for start.

The High Definition TV support was never going to really set the world, or the user forums, on fire. Even the Amazon-alike music recommendation functionality turned out to be OK, but not exactly a show-stopper.

But crashing Vista, no that really is genius. And it has really turned up the heat in the Apple support forums.

One chap posted saying: "I just installed itunes 8 over my itunes 7 on Vista. Now whenever I plug in my ipod nano, I get a blue screen death. 3 times so far. even if it is plugged in on boot, I get a blue screen.
Before itunes 8 I never seen a blue screen with vista since it came out."

With over 300 replies and around 15,000 people viewing that thread alone, you might hope Apple would be quick to respond. And it was. Well, sort of.

Apple posted a support document by the name of "iTunes 8: If Windows Vista displays a blue screen error message when connecting iPhone or iPod" offering advice on solving the BSOD problem.

The advice being to uninstall iTunes 8 and Apple Mobile Device Support, reboot the PC, re-download iTunes 8 and start again.

What other advice does Apple have for people still suffering the BSOD even doing that? And what is the real cause of this crashing problem? Find out on Page 2...

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