Every once in a while, Apple likes to have some fun at the expense of Windows users. However, for some reason, users tend to get miffed when this fun involves iPods infecting their computers with a virus or the latest version of iTunes sending their Vista-based computers into fits of blue screening. Apparently, the excuse that the latter two weren’t even intentional doesn’t carry much weight with said Windows users.
In case you do not use Windows at all (for which, sir, I congratulate you) and are unaware of it, the Windows version of iTunes 8 that was released alongside the Mac version this past Tuesday shipped with a buggy USB driver. Pesky little bugger that it was, it made Vista PCs very prone to showing the infamous BSoD, which in turn sent Vista users up in arms against Apple.
Apple has now acknowledged the issue and released a new version of iTunes 8 that contains an older version of the USB driver and is supposed to fix the issue. In a knowledge base article, Apple describes the problem thusly, “After installing iTunes 8 for Windows, some users may see a blue screen error message when connecting iPhone or iPod to a Windows Vista computer.” Frankly, I’m surprised that they didn’t refer to it as the BSoD. What’s wrong with using a widely accepted nickname anyway!
And how do we fix this issue, you ask? All you gotta do is unplug the iPhone/iPod, uninstall both iTunes and Apple Mobile Device Support, restart the computer and, assuming it doesn’t sputter and die on you (hey, it’s Vista after all), reinstall iTunes 8 using the updated installer. Any BSoDs you run into after that are just their way of telling you that they will always love you, no matter how many problems you fix.
