iTroubleshooting iTunes

[Nellisir]

iI do not have an iPod, but was considering getting one for my wife for Christmas.

I installed iTunes (7.0.2 on Win XP SP2)for the first time ever a few days ago. It ran great.

When I exited it, and opened it again, it again ran great. Like new. Too new. The iTunes Setup Assistant popped up. The changes I'd made had disappeared. Happened a few more times.

Uninstalled. Reinstalled. Still happens. None of my changes (like moving the music library or ripping preferences) stick. And the iTunes Setup Assistant runs every time.

I've been searching online, but turned up nothing. It's frustrating. I don't buy very much music online, and when I do I burn it onto a disc to listen to in the car. I bought 5 songs through iTunes, but it's starting to look like a waste of money.

Advice on fixing (my) iTunes? Or junk it and give up on downloading music?

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Have you made sure that you have admin rights on your machine? Try using a restore point to restore your machine back to a date before you did the install. Then if you haven't run a check disk and defrag recently I'd do that, then retry the install.

Try another profile with the machine as well and see if the problem remains there. If not then create a new one and migrate your data into it. Sometimes the profiles become corrupted on a level you can't fix due to slight corruption of the partition.


Also are you running up to date anti virus software? If not then I'd recommend getting some and running it.


The data form itunes and the ripped music should still be present on your PC in your "my music" folder, double shcek to make sure that is the case so at least you can recover the work you've already put in.

And as always make sure you've backed up any critical information before you start in case something goes wonky while you're working.

-Ashrum

 

[Rackhir]

Have you made sure that you have admin rights on your machine? Try using a restore point to restore your machine back to a date before you did the install. Then if you haven't run a check disk and defrag recently I'd do that, then retry the install.

I agree it sounds like this is a permissions issue. IE. That the account you installed the software under doesn't have sufficient rights to some directory or other, so it can't write the files or information and thus the changes you are making aren't being kept.

If the user account you are doing this under isn't an admin. Try making it one, at least temporarily. Or try installing it under the administrator account.

Here's the iTunes support site

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/

The Support forums

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=150

 

[Nellisir]

My virus protection is up-to-date, I defragged and overhauled my hard drive in the last month, and there is only one user account on this machine. If I don't have admin rights, I don't know who does.

I'll try creating a new account and go from there, though. I can also try on my other computer; this one has been having alot of issues lately (mostly resolved, but not totally, resolved).

I do remember seeing something about permissions issues, but didn't make the connection. I'll check that out also.

Thanks!

 

[Rackhir]

My virus protection is up-to-date, I defragged and overhauled my hard drive in the last month, and there is only one user account on this machine. If I don't have admin rights, I don't know who does.

I'll try creating a new account and go from there, though. I can also try on my other computer; this one has been having alot of issues lately (mostly resolved, but not totally, resolved).

I do remember seeing something about permissions issues, but didn't make the connection. I'll check that out also.

Thanks!

Windows can get flaky if it hasn't been reinstalled in a while. Especially if you install and uninstall a lot of programs. There's all sorts of *JUNK* that gets left behind in terms of registry entries, dlls and assorted files. It might be worthwhile to just blow a way the windows installation and reinstall it clean and from scratch.

Obviously backing up your files first is a good idea before doing this.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

I second the above comment as well. If you haven't done a full system reinstall within the last year I'd look at that as an option as well. Now if only I could get my corporate clients to understand that as well. :\

-Ashrum

 

[Nellisir]

I haven't done one for...well, since I upgraded to Win XP. And now that I've got the xternal HD, I can back everything up (actually, it's already backed up). So, what the heck. I'll do it. Might fix the quirks.

Probably won't happen for a few weeks, though. No time right now.

Thanks for the help.

 

[LightPhoenix]

It does sound like you know what you're doing, but I wanted to offer one more thing to check WRT permissions. If you can, go to Control Panel and click on User Accounts, and make sure yours says "is an admin."

If it does not, boot up into safe mode and see if it lists any other accounts there. There may be an admin account that is there that XP does not offer in regular boot up.

 

[Nellisir]

It does sound like you know what you're doing,

Barely. I can do most of the "surface" stuff once someone reminds me, but anything deeper and I'm lost. My "training" has just been through having a series of PCs for...12 years, and learning the basics to keep them more or less running. I don't go looking for trouble, so I usually only learn a new trick when something breaks.

but I wanted to offer one more thing to check WRT permissions. If you can, go to Control Panel and click on User Accounts, and make sure yours says "is an admin."

I did, and I do. My wife & I both use the computer, but she doesn't touch any settings and there's only one account, total.

So, I'll reinstall Windows when I get chance; probably in December.