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General discussion

Help! iTunes not working nicely with Windows 10, what gives?

Mar 23, 2018 5:19PM PDT

I have used iTunes for many years. But it no longer works. It recognizes my phone, but doesn't let me edit songs or download new playlists. Many songs are grayed out on the computer. I totally deleted every file I could find for Apple. Then I redownloaded iTunes. Still the same problem. If no one knows how to fix, I would like to get a new phone to put my music on. Is there another program that is like iTunes that would work on, say, Android? I don't want Pandora or those types of apps. I want my music. Is iTunes perhaps incompatible with Windows 10? Apple was no help! Thank you for your help.

--Submitted by PJ

Discussion is locked

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An update to iTunes may have deleted songs
Mar 30, 2018 7:18PM PDT

I’m not sure that what you describe is exaclty what I recently went through, but it is easy enough to check. A recent update to iTunes deleted all songs that were not purchased from iTunes. It may have left some tunes purchased from Amazon as well. Maybe it was deleting all songs that lacked DRM, like the tons of songs that I have ripped from CDs. To check, open your recycle bin. If you see your missing songs there, click the “Original Location” column to sort by original location (I am assuming that you saved your songs in the same place, like “Music.” Now, select all those songs that were located in your music, then right click and click restore. I am not sure if this is related to your playlist issue. Good luck.

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Install issues
Mar 30, 2018 7:54PM PDT

You've done much better than I have. I have been trying to install it for days and it stops about 2/3rds of the way through with an error message. I have deleted all Apple software several times and tried to install it to no avail. I wrote to Apple about it but have received no reply.. My partner has the exact same PC and OS and he is running it just fine and has been for a long time

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The "D" Word
Mar 31, 2018 1:59PM PDT

You mentioned you "deleted" the software several times. I'm HOPING you meant "uninstalled". Like most modern software, you cannot uninstall things by deleting files and/or folders. If you did delete them, then you have not uninstalled iTunes. It is still in your registry and in other folders under C:\windows\..... as well. Also, if you power off your PC after an update starts, that could be trouble. Check online to see if you can find a "MANUAL" method of uninstalling. What kind of error message are you getting?

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Uninstall
Mar 31, 2018 2:57PM PDT

Yes I used the uninstall program on all the Apple software. Unfortunately Itunes never actually installed. I continually got the message that some Windows installer program cannot be run. It happens every time. I even used the Revo Uninstaller to be sure all the Apple modules and registry entries were gong.

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Sounds Like a Local Win 10 Issue for You
Mar 31, 2018 11:15PM PDT

I think the OP has an issue with files that moved or that doesn't match the location specified in the registry. I've never had an issue "installing" anything on Win 10 (including iTunes). It almost sounds like someone turned off the Windows Installer or Update service which not only controls windows patching but also anything using the windows installer (just a guess from the remote arena). Could also be a registry issue. Is there any other software having a similar install issue? Dig you get the iTunes from the iTunes website (not an old XP-era version?). You might want to run SFC to see if a windows installer file is missing. Also, this could be if you are not running as an administrator although I doubt that could be an issue unless you are on a locked-down work computer. I'd love to help you but its hard not seeing the actual error. By the way, after you get the error, you might want to go into the Windows Event Viewer and see if there is an error code associated with the error (usually an 8-digit (hex, I believe) code.

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iCloud may be the problem
Mar 30, 2018 10:57PM PDT

I had the same problem with itunes and could not find a reason but suspected iCloud. I could not find a resolution but after a few weeks I got an iCloud update and itunes was back to normal.

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Ungray by selecting the song with a checkmark.
Mar 31, 2018 4:36AM PDT

Mine does the same. It does that because in the list of your songs under "my music" The songs I really like are selected with a checkmark. For example, I have the whole album but only like three of the songs. All my songs I downloaded are still there but will not really show as I don't usually pick them. I can go into the list and check the box and it will no longer be grayed out. You can check all of the boxes if you want them to all show. This was just a option provided by iTunes Happy

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What Is The Problem?
Mar 31, 2018 7:47AM PDT

Sorry to appear dense but I don't understand what your problem is. Is it iTunes on your Windows 10 computer that is having the problems you're describing? If so, what has your phone got to do with it? If the problem is with your phone's iTunes not being able to edit songs or download playlists from your Windows 10 computer from its iTunes? If the problem is on both the phone and the computer, since you say there are greyed out songs on the computer, are they also greyed out on the phone? Do either or both iTunes still play songs not greyed out? When you redownloaded iTunes did you do it on both machines? Are the songs greyed out on both iTunes?
I have had only one problem with iTunes and don't know if it applies but, the question is do the greyed out songs (on phone or computer) contain a circled exclamation mark next to them? I had this problem and it was due to songs disappearing from the iTunes music library. The reason given for that was that songs had moved of been moved to another location by some untended operations on the machine that held them. You could search both systems to see if the songs exist elsewhere and move them back to the iTunes library to solve that problem.

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Media Player is default on Windows 10
Mar 31, 2018 7:55AM PDT

I just use Media Player when I want to play something from my computer, but have Radio Sure for my Streaming. I never bought any music from Apple, so iTunes only played music that I had procured at other places. Years ago, I burned my entire record collection to MP3, and so all of my CDs are kind of obsolete. Do not listen to music from them anymore at all. Since iTunes was not installed on my computer, I did not install it myself since it seemed to get updated several times a year and it was a hassle to get some of the new installs to work properly. I will never have another copy of iTunes on my computers. I might have iTunes on my W7 computer which is from 2010, but my current computer with W10 on it is from 2016. Unless you are using an iPod of which I have had 3 in the past and only one currently in service, then I cannot see the need for iTunes. Windows Media Player works fine for me.

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Had similar problem - this worked for me!
Mar 31, 2018 1:02PM PDT

I have had a similar issue. And I was able to fix it with the help of Apple support (they were great!) and historical information. First, it is not a Windows issue. Second, let me describe my issue and see if it helps to fix yours or gives you some more ideas to try. I have an extensive iTunes library, that included iTunes purchases, CD imports, and music that was created using Audacity. All of this done under different versions of Windows, starting with XP, Vista, through 7 up to Windows 10. Over a 10+ year period. For clarification I never used Windows 8. I jumped from 7 to Windows 10 (home). My Windows 7 laptop was failing so I jumped to an ASUS all-in-one Windows 10 system, installed iTunes and then imported my iTunes library, all following Apple directions. And as you might guess a lot of my songs would no longer play or were grayed out. Deletes, de-install, re-install always same results. Go back to the failing laptop and iTunes and library work great. Go back to Win 10 system and really look at all grayed out songs and here is what I found: All the grayed out, non-playing songs were songs purchased from iTunes. All songs imported off CD or via Audacity worked fine. Some songs purchased from iTunes also worked fine. So what gives? Over the 10+ years with Apple iTunes (and some products, iPods up to iPad pro) I have had DIFFERENT APPLE IDs. Back in the beginning I had my first Apple account with an e-mail address where that provider went under. I had to get a new e-mail address, had to re-register with Apple but I was on the same computer at the time and iTunes. Later on switched e-mail providers, another Apple id etc., finally had the iPad and got and Apple ID under an @icloud.com account. So my iTunes library consisted of tunes purchased from iTunes under various different IDs. Finally upgraded to Windows 10 and installed iTunes, imported the library and had problems. Found out if I logged out of iTunes and logged back in under one those older IDs those songs purchased under those IDs worked. Eventually, with Apple support migrated those songs from under my old IDs to my current Apple account. Now all works!

Sorry for the wordiness in this post but it provides the background on what my issue was and how I was able to resolve it. Hope this helps with yours.

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Check your Windows
Mar 31, 2018 2:18PM PDT

Have you already checked your Windows with SFC and or DISM

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iTunes Trouble in Windows
Mar 31, 2018 3:13PM PDT

Over the course of the last couple of years, I have experienced increasing problems with ITunes on the Windows platform. After migrating to Windows 10 the problems continued to worsen. These problems presented themselves as greyed out entries, (which were indicative of missing tracks and/or privilege issues resulting in the inability to edit these files.) When I attempted to locate the missing items by searching for them on the hard drives, they had apparently been permanently deleted (completely bypassing the recycle bin.) Over the course of time, this problem has grown to the point where I had lost a significant number of files. Fortunately, I was able to recover some, but not all, of the files using File Recovery Software.

Reaching out to Apple for assistance and searching numerous forums not only served to show that I was not the only person with the problem, but also showed that there is no serious effort devoted to address this problem on Windows. (Reading forums, I was able see these issues were not showing up on the Mac platform.) To solve this on the Windows platform, I chose to find another music library software solution. After a fair bit of research and numerous tests, I have settled on MediaMonkey. So far, it has proven to be a more than adequate replacement and has presented none of the missing file, or laggy performance issues.

For reference, I have currently loaded approximately 1100 album artists, 3200 albums and 49,000 songs. This represents only a small portion (approximately one-fifth) my total music library.

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iTunes will not work on my Windows 10 Dell laptop
Apr 1, 2018 2:14PM PDT

When the laptop was new with Windows 8 iTunes installed and worked ok. After updating it to Windows 10 iTunes will not work. No matter how many times i uninstall it even with Apple iTunes support and religiously follow the prescribed uninstall method and then try to install the newest iTunes version iTunes will not work. It will not recognize my iPhone 7 using any of the IOS updates over the last three years now 11.3. I have just resigned myself to not use iTunes. I am willing to try anything short of reinstalling Windows from a factory restall. iTunes is not that important.

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In your case, might not be an iTunes issue.
Apr 1, 2018 2:17PM PDT

I have run into your situation and it was a motherboard driver that I had to get. Microsoft and Apple will not do this for us. Make a new post if you want to explore this further. Supply PC make, model etc.

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As Bob Said
Apr 1, 2018 9:24PM PDT

Whenever one upgrades to a major new OS (such as Win 10 or one of the feature updates after that), especially with a LAPTOP, you need to go to the manufacturer's website (of the laptop or other computer) and check for updates to pieces of software called DRIVERS. Microsoft supplies some, but they don't supply all especially where there are a lot of non-standard hardware involved. Laptops use a lot of that. Even the motherboard is not off-the-shelf. I would check drivers especially if something WORKS on one level of the OS and stops working after you've upgraded. You may be working with Win 8 drivers unless you went out and upgraded them yourself. I go out and check drivers AND firmware every year if not sooner.

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Drivers and Windows Update
Apr 2, 2018 9:18AM PDT

This is in response to Hforman and R. Proffitt.

I have an HP Envy laptop that is almost 4 years old that came with Windows 8 Pro on it. I got the free Windows 10 Pro upgrade when it came out. I have never downloaded or replaced one driver on my laptop. Windows 10 updates your laptop drivers through Windows Update. I also have HP specific software that came on my laptop that automatically updates firmware and drivers. One is HP Support Assistant, and the other is called HP Update. Same thing with my MS Surface pro 2. Went from Win8 Pro to Win10 Pro, and Windows Update has taken care of all driver and firmware needs. This should be true of any laptop brand, whether it be Dell, Acer, Lenovo, etc.

I also went to Microsoft Support and found this.

"How to update drivers

Driver updates for Windows 10 and many devices (such as network adapters, monitors, printers, and video cards) are automatically downloaded and installed through Windows Update.

While it's likely you already have the most recent driver, if you're having trouble with a device, you can try fixing it by updating the driver or reinstalling it. Here's how:

Select the Start button, type Device Manager, and select it from the list of results.

Expand one of the categories to find the name of your device, then right-click (or tap and hold) it, and select Update Driver. For graphics cards, expand the Display adapters category, right click your graphics card and select Update Driver.

Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

If Windows doesn't find a new driver, you can try looking for one on the device manufacturer's website and follow their instructions.

If these steps don't work, try reinstalling the driver: Open Device Manager, right-click (or tap and hold) the name of the device, and select Uninstall. Restart your PC and Windows will attempt to reinstall the driver."

As the article above shows, it doesn't take a lot of guess work to find out if your drivers are up to date. Windows will either automatically update them, or you can easily manually update them yourself through the Device Manager.

I mentioned in a post above that in my over ten years of using iTunes, the only problem I ever had with it, is one I created myself. I moved some of my music folders with music that iTunes was using, and iTunes couldn't find them. That was my fault. Otherwise, not one problem since I started using iTunes over 10 years ago in Windows 7.

Post was last edited on April 2, 2018 9:25 AM PDT

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Drivers and Windows Update
Apr 2, 2018 9:26AM PDT

This post is in response to Hforman and R. Proffitt.

I have an HP Envy laptop that is almost 4 years old that came with Windows 8 Pro on it. I got the free Windows 10 Pro upgrade when it came out. I have never downloaded or replaced one driver on my laptop. Windows 10 updates your laptop drivers through Windows Update. I also have HP specific software that came on my laptop that automatically updates firmware and drivers. One is HP Support Assistant, and the other is called HP Update. Same thing with my MS Surface pro 2. Went from Win8 Pro to Win10 Pro, and Windows Update has taken care of all driver and firmware needs. This should be true of any laptop brand, whether it be Dell, Acer, Lenovo, etc.

I also went to Microsoft Support and found this.

"How to update drivers

Driver updates for Windows 10 and many devices (such as network adapters, monitors, printers, and video cards) are automatically downloaded and installed through Windows Update.

While it's likely you already have the most recent driver, if you're having trouble with a device, you can try fixing it by updating the driver or reinstalling it. Here's how:

Select the Start button, type Device Manager, and select it from the list of results.

Expand one of the categories to find the name of your device, then right-click (or tap and hold) it, and select Update Driver. For graphics cards, expand the Display adapters category, right click your graphics card and select Update Driver.

Select Search automatically for updated driver software.

If Windows doesn't find a new driver, you can try looking for one on the device manufacturer's website and follow their instructions.

If these steps don't work, try reinstalling the driver: Open Device Manager, right-click (or tap and hold) the name of the device, and select Uninstall. Restart your PC and Windows will attempt to reinstall the driver."

As the article above shows, it doesn't take a lot of guess work to find out if your drivers are up to date. Windows will either automatically update them, or you can easily manually update them yourself through the Device Manager.

I mentioned in a post above that in my over ten years of using iTunes, the only problem I ever had with it, is one I created myself. I moved some of my music folders with music that iTunes was using, and iTunes couldn't find them. That was my fault. Otherwise, not one problem since I started using iTunes over 10 years ago in Windows 7.

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Sorry but anyone that believes re Microsoft + Drivers
Apr 2, 2018 9:34AM PDT

Is going to have a bad day. Believe it if you want. The number of times techs and others have had to get drivers the old fashioned way is proof enough here.

I fear you might get upset over this news. Sorry about that.

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Not a matter of belief,
Apr 2, 2018 10:34AM PDT

but of real life experience. Maybe in the old days of win3.1 up to WinXP you had to really stay on top of it, but since Win7, Microsoft has made it pretty easy to stay on top of driver issues. And, like I said, what Microsoft might miss, the laptop manufacturer makes up for with its own pre-installed update software. I'm not a new kid on the block when it comes to tech and computers. Almost 60 years old and have been using Windows since 3.1 on an old IBM PC 330 450DX2 486. Quickly found out that calling tech support for help was a joke. A majority of tech support has no real life experience, just a huge data base they search for answers on. Nowadays if you have a problem that you don't know the answer to from experience, you have a data base that's just as good as any tech support. It's called Google.

So Mr R. Proffitt. Explain to me why for the past 4 and a half years, Microsoft and HP update software have been taking care of my driver and firmware needs for me. Windows is a great OS if you are actually familiar enough with it to know what its abilities are. I can make Windows stand on its head, jump through hoops, and spit jellie beans. I need my computer and its OS to do what I need it to do, so I made it my mission to do just that. Not only that, I've been a Microsoft Beta tester since Windows XP was released.

What's your experience with Windows Mr. Proffitt, that you feel you can advise people to discount the experience I related in my post about Microsoft Windows Update and Drivers?

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HP's driver update really helps.
Apr 3, 2018 8:45AM PDT

HP and other makers have done a pretty good job on this area.

But the experience from so many with say machines they made themselves is where you see Microsoft has lightyears to go before we can rely on their driver choices.

So yes, it's going to rattle and rankle some but there are good ways to deal with driver hell. It's sad when you read a post about all was OK and Windows Update for drivers took it down.

Me? Just someone that's been on this ride since pre-PC. Owned PC repair shops, wrote apps for so many platforms and hardware designs too. Sold the shops and now only get to deal with hard cases.

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Not quite a matter of belief,
Apr 2, 2018 10:35AM PDT

but of real life experience. Maybe in the old days of win3.1 up to WinXP you had to really stay on top of it, but since Win7, Microsoft has made it pretty easy to stay on top of driver issues. And, like I said, what Microsoft might miss, the laptop manufacturer makes up for with its own pre-installed update software. I'm not a new kid on the block when it comes to tech and computers. Almost 60 years old and have been using Windows since 3.1 on an old IBM PC 330 450DX2 486. Quickly found out that calling tech support for help was a joke. A majority of tech support has no real life experience, just a huge data base they search for answers on. Nowadays if you have a problem that you don't know the answer to from experience, you have a data base that's just as good as any tech support. It's called Google.

So Mr R. Proffitt. Explain to me why for the past 4 and a half years, Microsoft and HP update software have been taking care of my driver and firmware needs for me. Windows is a great OS if you are actually familiar enough with it to know what its abilities are. I can make Windows stand on its head, jump through hoops, and spit jellie beans. I need my computer and its OS to do what I need it to do, so I made it my mission to do just that. Not only that, I've been a Microsoft Beta tester since Windows XP was released.

What's your experience with Windows Mr. Proffitt, that you feel you can advise people to discount the experience I related in my post about Microsoft Windows Update and Drivers?

Post was last edited on April 2, 2018 10:35 AM PDT

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My experience is over some thousand PCs
Apr 2, 2018 11:09AM PDT

At office, shop and home.

I don't disbelieve it worked for you but can you give the folk advice on how to get Apple and Microsoft to fix the USB port issue?

I have yet to find Apple or Microsoft to not give out driver advice over the years. You may have have good luck with Microsoft's Driver Update feature but here folk only bring me the failures.

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Sorry but
Apr 2, 2018 4:23PM PDT

We've already handled issues with people having the wrong drivers. That is, the drivers were NOT Win 10 but were Win 8. You could only get the latest by going to the OEM website; not MS. And, as I said before, the HP printer driver I got from MS was next to useless with a lot of people complaining about it because they used the Universal driver and NOT the hardware specific drivers.

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My Drivers
Apr 2, 2018 10:00AM PDT

The issue I had was with my printer drivers. Yes, I have an old HP printer, but MS installed HP's universal driver. As a result, I can't service the printer. For example, I get a message that the printer is low on ink but it won't tell me which cartridge is low. But, I've also heard from people that are NOT getting all their drivers updated. My "guess" is that Microsoft only updates drivers that are part of their certification program and not ALL drivers. If you HP laptop is fine, that is great. But others are not that great from what I am seeing.

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No More Drivers
Apr 3, 2018 12:36PM PDT

Luckily, we may all soon have autonomous vehicles and that may do away with the need for drivers totally.

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Predictions didn't work out for this.
Apr 3, 2018 12:49PM PDT
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Soon is a "relative" Term
Apr 3, 2018 6:55PM PDT

Post was last edited on April 3, 2018 6:57 PM PDT

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iTunes not working
Apr 3, 2018 6:05PM PDT

I had the same problem with iTunes and it liked to duplicate albums for me. I followed your suggestion of deactivating my computer and reactivating it. Worked well. Since the problem was also on my phone, I uninstalled and installed the music app. After syncing, both are working well.

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Received this from a member via email
Apr 11, 2018 10:52AM PDT

and posting it here for PJ:

I also had the same problem as PJ....which did not go away by uninstalling iTunes and also didn't even allow me to update iTunes. Eventually what worked was simply completing the Windows updates...... I had several Windows updates which were not installing on my laptop, seemingly because it kept going to sleep/hibernate mode. It took me several (more than 5) hours to completely update Windows before I was able to complete an iTunes update and then all my media content was available in iTunes.

Good luck to him.

Ces

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Re: update
Apr 11, 2018 11:01AM PDT

Just a note. For time-consuming operations (like the half-yearly Windows 10 upgrade) it makes sense to set the energy setting to never go into sleep and hibernate.

Post was last edited on April 11, 2018 12:27 PM PDT