ITunes 8 a Real Killer App; Taking Down Vista

CWmike writes "Apple 's latest version of iTunes crashes Windows Vista when an iPod or iPhone is connected to the PC, scores of users have reported on Apple's support forum. Plug in and Vista crashes and shows the 'blue screen of death.' The errors began showing up immediately after updating iTunes to Version 8.0, which Apple released Tuesday as part of its iPod refresh. 'I just installed iTunes 8 over my iTunes 7 on Vista [and] now whenever I plug in my iPod, I get a blue screen death. Three times so far. Even if it is plugged in on boot, I get a blue screen," said a user identified as 'sambeckett' on the support forum about 90 minutes after Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrapped up the iPod launch."

Comments

Re:How apt

[UnknowingFool]

Since we don't know what really caused it yet, can you absolutely say it was iTunes 8? It may be iTunes 8; it may be Vista. Right now all we know is the interaction of the two causes an issue. iTunes 7 and Vista don't have this problem. I would bet that iTunes 8 and XP doesn't have this problem. So that it could be that iTunes 8 has a serious bug that only crashes Vista or that Vista has a serious bug that iTunes 8 exposes like a bad API.

Re:iTunes Really a Mac App

[Wizard Drongo]

I'm partly of the opinion that Apple should just release Cocoa for windows. They have already ported it, since iTunes, QuickTime and Safari all use it on Windows for their custom UI. It's in there. I think it's even called "Cocoa.dll".
They should maybe open it up for usage by everyone else (perhaps a plugin for X-Code to allow compilation for Windows) and thus make Cocoa the preferred cross-platform API for mac & windows. Not to mention mean that bugs like this would have to get stamped a lot quicker. It would put a down on Mac sales though.

Then again, I'm also partly of the opinion that Apple should discontinue iTunes and Safari for Windows and give everyone a 10% off your next Mac voucher in place of it. Why support shitty OS's that let a media-player down the entire system?
Windows is a bag of balls, Vista in particular. I know it, you know it, Steve knows it, Bill G knows it, we all know it.
Sooner businesses stop buying Vista or Vista OEM machines the better.

Re:Kernel mode driver

[johkir]

I suspect this may just be the first BSOD due to the Protected Media Path stuff. iTunes happens to be very very popular, so we all get to read about it. As more and more apps get developed to do something with A/V media, we'll see more and more problems. Apple happens to be the hot company du jour, so lots of coverage too.

Re:Good Marketing

[m50d]

If you have not had vista BSOD, then all that means is your hardware is exceptionally well built and defect free, and that none of your components have resource conflicts with any others. My guess is your PC is OEM manufactured, likely by Dell, and is on the lower end of the spectrum (under $800 base system, that maybe you added a nice video card and some extra RAM to)

Vista may not BSOD on you, but I bet you have frequent application crashes... I don't typically go more than a few days without an application bombing out, my desktop refreshing from an explorer crash, my printer loosing connection, or an app just hanging and needing to be killed by task manager.

Sure, memory leaks may be a thing of the past, and generally when an app bombs, the machine stays up... My Mac has had those features for 6 years!

This sort of shit is still getting +5s? I thought better of slashdot these days.

I can't remember the last time I had an application crash in Vista. I'd no fan of windows, but this is just pure FUD.