Actually, it's worse than that. iTunes 5.0 for Windows appears to have been delivered with so many problems that there are a vast number of messages on the Apple support discussions from peoaple who cannot make the new iTunes for Windows work. For many, the problem appears after the install appears to have gone well.
There seem to be several reasons for problems, including conflicts with Norton Internet Security, and conflicts with firewalls.
But one of the strangest is that the new iTunes seems to require the presence of Microsoft's MAPI32.DLL in the/windows/system32 directory. If it's not there, you get an obscure error and iTunes won't run. It's not clear why iTunes needs the MAPI32 drivers. But if you don't have the one specific version that comes with Windows XP SP2, you're out of luck. That means that if you've changed the MAPI drivers because you have a different e-mail system (Eudora for example) then you can't use iTunes.
Just to make sure that I report this completely, you can rename the old MAPI32 driver (Eudora renames it to MAPI32.000) and iTunes will work. But as soon as you run Eudora again, it reinstalls the non-Microsoft MAPI driver.
This is apparently the case with other e-Mail systems that install their own MAPI32 drivers. There's no explanation from Apple as to why it needs this driver, or what it does with it.
This is by no means the only issue with iTunes 5.0. There are other installation problems, including some in which iTunes 5.0 for Windows has crashed computers, randomly invoked the Blue Screen of Death, mangled the Microsoft Installer, and otherwise done nasty things. But the one thing that is so far uniform is that Apple has said nothing.
Wayne Rash
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's worse than that. iTunes 5.0 for Windows appears to have been delivered with so many problems that there are a vast number of messages on the Apple support discussions from peoaple who cannot make the new iTunes for Windows work. For many, the problem appears after the install appears to have gone well. There seem to be several reasons for problems, including conflicts with Norton Internet Security, and conflicts with firewalls. But one of the strangest is that the new iTunes seems to require the presence of Microsoft's MAPI32.DLL in the /windows/system32 directory. If it's not there, you get an obscure error and iTunes won't run. It's not clear why iTunes needs the MAPI32 drivers. But if you don't have the one specific version that comes with Windows XP SP2, you're out of luck. That means that if you've changed the MAPI drivers because you have a different e-mail system (Eudora for example) then you can't use iTunes.
Just to make sure that I report this completely, you can rename the old MAPI32 driver (Eudora renames it to MAPI32.000) and iTunes will work. But as soon as you run Eudora again, it reinstalls the non-Microsoft MAPI driver.
This is apparently the case with other e-Mail systems that install their own MAPI32 drivers. There's no explanation from Apple as to why it needs this driver, or what it does with it.
This is by no means the only issue with iTunes 5.0. There are other installation problems, including some in which iTunes 5.0 for Windows has crashed computers, randomly invoked the Blue Screen of Death, mangled the Microsoft Installer, and otherwise done nasty things. But the one thing that is so far uniform is that Apple has said nothing.
Wayne Rash