Slashdot Mirror
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."
Expect Apple to blame Vista.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Yay!! I was getting worried I was never going to see the BSOD again.. Welcome back old friend
That really IS horrible. I did not know that anyone was actually using Vista. - Steve J.
That this wasn't caught in the testing stages?
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
iTunes ain't done, 'til Vista don't run!
This sounds like a feature, not a bug.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
You know, it seems like there are an awful lot of problems with drivers under Vista. Certainly far more problems than I've seen on Vista.
The thing that bothers me about that is the change in driver architecture was billed as a way to make Vista faster and more stable. Why, then, is it that most of the drivers for Vista are less stable and slower than the same hardware running in XP?
It's been a long time.
"iTunes has detected illegal music files. Now trashing your computer . . . please wait for the lawyers to show up."
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
AFAIK the only thing that can cause a BSOD is code running in the kernel space, ring 0.
Quite why iTunes affects stuff that runs in kernel space is another matter... but I suspect it's probably to do with the Protected Media Path stuff. DRM, in other words. I can't think of anything in iTunes that should be running in kernel space - in Vista, all drivers apart from a component of the graphics driver are supposed to run in userspace.
"Wow PC, it looks like your Vista users are really having headaches running great software like iTunes 8. Mac runs them just fine."
"You son of a bitch." (Pulls out a gun)
"Whoa PC, whoa, let's not..."
BLAM.
Apple should have debugged it on a vista box
Fixed that for you.
This happened to me... I read the Apple thread, and followed simple instructions... unplugged my HP printer, and it stopped the BSOD's when I plugged in my iPhone. Most people are saying the problem is with the Apple USB drivers screwing with the drivers for HP printers and Logitech mice/keyboards. There may be other devices that cause the problem as well, but those two are the biggies.
So until iTunes 8.1 is released, I can either charge my phone or print... but not both at the same time!
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
I went to RTFA. Before it showed me the article, though, I got a page that asked, "What are you waiting for? Make the move to Microsoft Vista with confidence."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
iTunes installs its own CD drivers to manage ripping and burning, as well as always-on "helper" and updater processes, in addition to drivers for the iPod/iPhone.
Asinine, but then again Apple doesn't follow Windows UI guidelines either.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Personally, I blame Linux.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Geesh the last three versions were bloated to the heavens. I think it takes about a minute to start now. A least few recent versions flat out crashed or did not update correctly. And is there any piece of application software that takes more time to update than iTunes? I don't think so.
...but what if Apple pulled a Microsoft and put an intentional bug into the app? Sure, it might seem a little too sophisticated for such a small thing, and people will still blame iTunes since it's the main application, but what if tomorrow Steve releases a press release apologizing to Vista users but blames it squarely on Vista "oh sorry something in our new version invoked a buggy piece of vista and we had to work around it." And what if that's what all the support people at apple are instructed to say? What if friends down the street say "oh dude I have a Mac/XP and it works fine for me" might iPod users say "fuckin' vista!" With a little careful preparation, I think this might be possible... maybe only a little bit of a stretch? :)
Sounds a little conspiracy theory-ish, but keep an eye out the next couple of days. You never know.
I am a mac fan, but I don't put evil past Apple by any means, they are a corporation after all. At the same time, evil attacking evil is loads of fun to watch, but I pity the people who get caught in the middle who can't sync now until a fix is released.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Mod this bullshit down. The iTunes DRM is 100% inside quicktime.qts.
(I'm the original author of PyTunes, the base for Pymusique -- I know a bit about Fairplay)
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
The tags right now are [+] bug, media, music, windows, haha (tagging beta)
Odd that Apple, iPod, and iTunes aren't tags for a story about a bug in their software?
Vista sucks for not encapsulating the exception, but it sure sounds like the bug is on Apple's side of the issue.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
WMP doesn't follow windows UI guidelines. I think the UI guidelines for Windows specifically give media players a pass.
Itunes in past has:
- deleted your legit music
- Unstalled othe mac applications without asking you
- Hijacked volume control from windows
- Modified code specifically to make it hard to work with the ipod outside of itunes
- Is the largest pusher of DRM technology
Really a BSOD isn't that big of a deal. And incase you are curious NO it isn't windows fault. Why is a music player installing drivers overtop of standard drivers that work perfectly? Aside from their hatred of doing things the same even when they are better only jobs knows. If windows tried to pull even half the bullship Apple has they would have been sued into dust. I find it disgusting its ok since its mac.
If iPods were simply accessible as a USB mass storage device, I don't think there would have been a problem.
From what I can see, Apple uses a proprietary device-type, so they can talk to it using an encrypted connection.
All that, simply to keep you from copying files you supposedly don't have the right to copy.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
HP Printer.
Drivers on windows can be troublesome. It would suprise me if usbaapl64.sys has some issue previously undiscovered.
This is fallout of shared component design MS uses.
Should Apple have tested with HP printers? Probably, but no one can test every configuration of a PC.
The USB set up MS is using is causing a fault in Ring 0. That's the only way I can see this causing a BSoD
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
He mixed Apple iTunes sloppy code with Microsoft Vista sloppy code.
That is why I don't use iTunes or Vista, both have sloppy code in them that cause crashed. When you cross both of them together you crash the system or at least cause it to lock up.
It is also why my G3 iMac was never upgraded to Mac OSX and still runs Mac OS9, because of Apple's sloppy code in OSX. If I convert it to a new OS it will either be Linux or AROS, because both of them are stable and being ported to the PowerPC platform or have a port already.
Apple "borrowed" a lot from Commodore, first it was the Vic-20 Commodore logo key copied as the Apple logo key on the Apple //e, then it was the Commodore Vic-20 and Commodore 64 compact design copied with the Apple //c, then it was the Amiga Workbench and co-processor support for 4096 colors and above with the Commodore Amiga in the Macintosh II (The Macintosh II was basically an Amiga 2000 rip-off after the Mr. Coffee Classic black and white Macintosh series was an epic fail), and then NeXT was an AmigaOS rip-off using BSD Unix (AmigaOS/AmigaDOS was based on the Unix-like TriPOS and Steve Jobs learned from his epic fail to use Unix as it is more like the Amiga to help make Next survive), Pixar ripped off the Newtek Video Toaster that Amigas had used (Steve Jobs saw how Amiga 2000s with the Video Toaster did great desktop video for movies and wanted to borrow that tech for Pixar), and then Mac OSX got the AROS and AmigaOS 3.X look and feel but with the Microsoft Windows bloat. AROS does not have the Windows bloat but still has the AmigaDOS/Workbench "less is more" approach in that it is memory efficient and doesn't need a high end processor with tons of memory to run it.
Basically Apple started to slowly evolve into Microsoft, and Amiga and the Amiga technology evolved into what the Macintosh should have been in 1985, and evolved into what it should be with AROS into modern times.
Apple even is suing people like Microsoft did like Pystar because of its EULA, which is very much like the one Microsoft has. Apple vs. Pystar is very much like Microsoft vs. IBM over OS/2, so Apple is evolving to what Microsoft was during the OS/2 years in the 1990's.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Try plugginh an HP printer into the same usb Channel as your iPhone.
This will cause the crash.
In the scenerio I presented to you, whose fault would you think was the crash if you ahdn
t read this story?
Probably HPs.
Just an example of how overly complex windows driver architecture is.
This is why I feel we should go back to the applications installing everything it needs under a directory it creates.
Less mess, easy trouble shooting easy uninstall, not files scattered all over your system.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's a great lightweight player called Play that may float your boat:
http://sbooth.org/Play/
Basically, it has the core functionality of iTunes, it's free as in beer, and isn't bloated.
G-Force music visualization
I'll second the notion that iTunes for Windows is a steaming heap of crap.
You're being mean to crap everywhere.
iTunes on Windows is on par with Realplayer, complete and total shit. Treat it like you would a virus, kill it. Avoid installing it.
If you have to install it then use VMWare. VMWare traps the itunes shitstorm quite nicely.
Hehe shitstorm.
I don't own an iPod, but I have family members that do and I immediately remove iTunes, install WinAMP, and done.
WinAMP can manage an iPod okay, and it doesn't screw with my media library.
On top of all of the crappiness of iTunes, my biggest problem with it is that if you plan on using iTunes, you *have* to manage your media with it. There's no "rescan library" function. If you do it manually, you get two of everything in your list. It sucks and shows much arrogance on Apple's part.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Please see this apple knowledge base page: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2280
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
I see plenty of articles about people wanting to run arbitrary software on iPhones (and the iPod Touch handheld) but don't see much about people having problems putting music on or taking music off of iPods using programs other than iTunes, which is what the person I was replying to brought up... along with some sort of "encryption" used on the USB connection.
I provided a nice list of ten programs other than iTunes that read and write music to the iPod. I think that pretty thoroughly debunks said point.
I just went over that list of 10 programs through some (admittedly not thorough) googling, and checked them for compatibility with iPhone/iPod Touch, which are the models that cause the issue due to the encryption/hashing used.
So perhaps your nice list of programs is less useful than you thought, and does not debunk the point.
As far as I know, there is no program other than iTunes that will let you put music on an iPod Touch/iPhone (with v2 firmware) without hacking the device's OS. iirc, hacking the OS voids the warranty, so obviously most people don't want to do this.