Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

[mrjamin]

Ok, this is funny! (Not a serious suggestion). A friend of mine wanted me to build him a computer he could do DV editting on, audio editting and working. He's self employed and works for the EU as a translator and unfortunately they require PCs, so a mac was out of the question.

Anyway, I ordered all the bits, put them all together. Installed XP, no probs. Started downloading aps etc; removed all mention of IE, and set Firefox as the default browser, then installed QT & iTunes. no probs. Was using iTunes for a while, no problems at all. Then ran windows update; installed the 42 ( ) "critical" updates for it (quite shocking seeing as it was installed as Win XP SP1!). Rebooted the machine.

Now, whenever we run quicktime or iTunes, the whole system freezes! Thats right, a freeze - mouse stops responding, keyboard doesn't work - the machine requires a hard restart. iTunes and QT are the ONLY apps to cause this - i've been racking my brains trying to find another cause but have come to the conclusion that its QT & iTunes!

Could it be that MS are 'spiking' XP with updates which crash PCs whenever apple stuff is running to turn people off macs? Who knows.... extremely unlikely, but still a possibility....

 

[DanUk2003]

Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by mrjamin
...Now, whenever we run quicktime or iTunes, the whole system freezes! Thats right, a freeze - mouse stops responding, keyboard doesn't work - the machine requires a hard restart. iTunes and QT are the ONLY apps to cause this - i've been racking my brains trying to find another cause but have come to the conclusion that its QT & iTunes!

Could it be that MS are 'spiking' XP with updates which crash PCs whenever apple stuff is running to turn people off macs? Who knows.... extremely unlikely, but still a possibility....

Hey Ben,

I've had problems with iTunes on Win2K... Fairly unstable - perhaps it's just my pc tho...

who knows what MS could be up to with their updates!!

 

[mrjamin]

Re: Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by DanUk2003
Hey Ben,

I've had problems with iTunes on Win2K... Fairly unstable - perhaps it's just my pc tho...

who knows what MS could be up to with their updates!!

Dan?? I didn't know you posted on here! How bizarre! you are dan roberts, right??

Does your computer freeze? or does iTunes just crash?

 

[Phatpat]

iTunes has worked fine under XP for me...

though I'm all for the Microsoft conspiracy theories, so keep at it!

 

[superbovine]

uninstall and reinstall itunes and QT.

they aren't trying to crash apple products. its a common problem that alot of apps have when service pack is installed not just apple products.

 

[mrjamin]

Originally posted by superbovine
uninstall and reinstall itunes and QT.

they aren't trying to crash apple products. its a common problem that alot of apps have when service pack is installed not just apple products.

tried that several times - no joy.

i think the problem lies with the fact that there are 2 soundcards on the machine - one bog standard one, and the other is a high-end M-Audio studio soundcard & breakout cables, iTunes doesn't seem to have any 'output device' preferences, and simply outputs to all available audio outs - interestingly it also seems to bypass windows' audio prefernces. Seeing as there are 14 different audio outs on 2 soundcards, it seems to cause windows to trip over itself and freeze completely.

 

[takao]

hm very bizarre

i had problems with iTunes too but after a few test i found out they were caused by overheating
i installed iTunes on this computer xp2000,512 mb ram,xp Pro instead of musicmatch/winamp combo
musicmatch got overload and slower in their free version
and winamp 5 isn't comfortable enough for burning/ripping/playlists

i was like "WTF" after sudden poweroff during importing a cd
those fans were full of dust ... pretty disgusting.. CPU was at 72°C after this...a Pentium would have been dead as brick at this temp...

 

[DanUk2003]

Re: Re: Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by mrjamin
Dan?? I didn't know you posted on here! How bizarre! you are dan roberts, right??

Does your computer freeze? or does iTunes just crash?

No, it's Daniel, remember me?!

How's things with u, anyway?

 

[mrjamin]

Originally posted by takao
hm very bizarre

i had problems with iTunes too but after a few test i found out they were caused by overheating
i installed iTunes on this computer xp2000,512 mb ram,xp Pro instead of musicmatch/winamp combo
musicmatch got overload and slower in their free version
and winamp 5 isn't comfortable enough for burning/ripping/playlists

i was like "WTF" after sudden poweroff during importing a cd
those fans were full of dust ... pretty disgusting.. CPU was at 72°C after this...a Pentium would have been dead as brick at this temp...

case temp is at 32°C, CPU is at 55°C - very low considering the machine is completely silent!

Here's the spec:
Athlon XP 3200+ (400mhz FSB) - using a scythe kamikaze cooler
1GB DDR3200 RAM
GeForce FX5800 + heatpipe cooler
2x Zalman Case fans
52x36x52 cdrw
16x dvdrom
400W QTechnology silent PSU
160GB SATA HDD (seagate barracuda - quietist drive on the market)
M-Audio Delta 1010LT

its quieter than a G5!

all well within AMD's heat requirements for a stable machine too.

So, its been narrowed down to 1 of 2 things in my mind:

1) windows doing its usual thing
2) the dual soundcard setup

 

[mrjamin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by DanUk2003
No, it's Rob's friend, Daniel, remember me?!

How's things with u, anyway?

*removed to preserve anonymity*

 

[ewinemiller]

or maybe it was just bad Apple code

The first version of iTunes for PC was a real mess. I installed it on my wife's machine. It may have been complete coincidence, but it kept quiting during the synch to the ipod and locking up. Finally I had to kill the process and the next time I rebooted, the hard drive was trashed, nothing recoverable.

I did a clean install to the machine and told the wife to use the Mac for synching the iPod. We haven't had a problem with her machine since so I place the blame squarely on iTunes. However I have a few other PCs with iTunes installed and haven't had any problems with those since iTunes PC was updated.

 

[ratspg]

haha

I don't think that's the deal, I had majooooor problems, but I added ram to my pc and wallaaa... iTunes works like it does on my powerbook (riiiiiiight) lol

 

[abhishekit]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by mrjamin
dan purchese??

hell..get the name right man..

 

[mrjamin]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

Originally posted by abhishekit
hell..get the name right man..

dan's not exactly an uncommon name though is it??

 

[Makosuke]

Re: Win XP "programmed" to crash apple software?

I like the conspiracy theory, but I doubt it. MS actually does relatively well with their voluminous updates, but they break stuff sometimes, and since iTunes and especially Quicktime operate at a relatively low level, it's not really surprising that an update might cause a crash when trying to run them. As with all Windows stuff, uninstalling and reinstalling is the first thing to try, and hope that fixes it. Otherwise, time for troubleshooting hell...

Originally posted by mrjamin
Then ran windows update; installed the 42 ( ) "critical" updates for it (quite shocking seeing as it was installed as Win XP SP1!).

Funny, isn't it; I got a box from Dell late last year, and I had to restart 8 times just to get all the security patches installed. This was a factory fresh machine with the latest service pack installed.

 

[Falconz720]

coincidence?

I recently custom built a machine of my own. I have 4 gigs of DDR2 ram, Intel Core 2 Duo processor and Intel motherboard, XP Pro sp2. Sometimes when i run iTunes the computer completely locks up, just like yours does, no mouse control, nothing. Only iTunes does this. Its so frustrating because I'll be listening to music and writing a paper or soemthing and it just cuts out and I have to do a hard reset. I need an answer as much as you do.

 

[Makosuke]

Well, given that the discussion here is just shy of three years old, the similar problems might just be coincidence--given that during that time QuickTime has gone from 6.5 to 7.1 and iTunes has gone from 4.2 to version 7 I'd say quite a bit has changed.

It's certainly not standard behavior--I've seen iTunes run plenty stably on a number of Windows machines--so I guess it's one of those "Uninstall, reinstall, and pray" situations unless this is a known issue or something.