About a month ago I was working on my PC at home and decided that I wanted to listen to music. Normally, I use itunes for listening to music, so naturally I got online and downloaded the install file. First problem, you either download “itunes + quicktime” or nothing. Lame, but whatever. Quicktime never hurt me, I’d just like to have the option. So I start installing it. I notice it’s really big, but continue anyway. One progress bar after another fills up. I’m reminded of the scene in Office Space when Peter is trying to log out of his computer. Each progress bar says something like “installing files” or “configuring blah blah.” Seemed like an awful lot of steps for 2 programs. Finally it finishes installing and I add some music and enjoy a little Easy Star Allstars as I work.
After the work comes the play. I decide I want to play Red Alert 3, so I insert it into one of my DVD drives. Nothing. I open up “My Computer” and my DVD drives are gone! I spend the next 2 hours or so messing with settings and looking for answers online. I finally discover the problem: itunes8. That’s right, itunes made my disk drives vanish (at least virtually. Luckily they were still in my tower when I checked.)
So I uninstall itunes and voila, my Disk drives are back. Solution: don’t use itunes. Well, one of the reasons I use itunes over other media players is that I love how it keeps my music folder organized. So I decide to give it another go. Same thing. So I recruit Google to find a solution. As it turns out, itunes 8 is full of extras that you had no idea it was installing. You can never trust such programs to uninstall everything after you’ve installed it. Here is a link to images of the multiple progress bars. I don’t really want to go through my computer searching for these programs. If only Windows had the coveted “Time Machine” that Apple enthusiasts rant and rave about. Oh wait. It does. It’s called System Restore and has been around since the early days of Windows. Restore to before the itunes 8 install. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, I have an ipod. ipod – itunes = brick. Luckily other programs will support it, such as winamp, just not as well. And heaven forbid I should ever have to restore it (which I will, as it crashes often). I guess I’ll just go find an old itunes 7 installer somewhere in the dusty cellar of the internet.
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