iTunes 8 + Vista = BSOD!

I don't know about you, but I don't miss the Blue Screen Of Death at all. No, I didn't switch to Mac OS X or Linux, although I am using both of them from time to time. Since I started using Windows XP, I only saw the BSOD two or three times, and each time it was about some nasty drivers (that I installed without paying attention to what I am doing), or hardware with problems (last time, it was a damaged memory module, and it wasn't even one of my computers). Now, a new wave of BSODs is coming, but it won't catch me, since I am not using the deadly combination!

What deadly combination? The answer is very simple - iTunes 8, Windows Vista, and an iPod or the iPhone. Pretty cool, don't you think? I always considered the BSOD something funny - obviously, as long as it wasn't happening to me.

Regarding the fatal combination I just mentioned, here's what happened these days to some Windows Vista and iTunes 8 users: as soon as they connected the iPod or iPhone to their Windows Vista computer, iTunes 8 crashed it with a nice BSOD(for some of them, I guess it was a different color, if they were that much into customizing the look of Vista that they changed the default color of the BSOD!).

According to a tech note from Apple, a workaround for this problem would be to uninstall Apple Mobile Device Support, restart the computer, and the download and install the iTunes 8 installer once again. Nobody seems to have any idea about what's wrong with Apple Mobile Device Support yet, so this is all you need to know, for now.

The funny part is that, according to various sources, including Macworld and ZDNet, Apple replaced the files associated with Apple Mobile Device Support with the ones from iTunes 7.7. Not quite the smartest solution, but at least it works!