I swear sometimes (well actually I probably swear a lot more than I should) but seriously, sometimes I truly have to shake my head at the way Windows works. I am currently in the process of repairing a friends computer after she tried to perform what she does pretty much every day, which is to plug her iphone in to her computer to not only charge it up, but of course update whatever new apps require updating since she doesn't download podcasts. Windows (7 I might add so you should think this wouldn't be a problem) comes up stating it can not find the appropriate driver for the device. Knowing nothing has changed, I immediately went to check if there were updates and sure enough there was a new version of itunes available so that was updated but unplugging and replugging in the device still gave the same error. So digging in deep to the system device manager because, well, that's just what I do and should be able to solve things quite easily you should think... removing the device and allowing windows to re-detect it only to find it can't...so going through manual steps I managed to TELL windows that the device is right there and works fine.. it installs.. the real problem was there was new iphone software available and itunes had already started the backup process when for whatever reason, the device stopped reading the iphone (crashing the device) and as a result the backup and everything was now corrupt, resulting in what appears to be at least a 2 hour process at this point since I am first having to manually download the available updates and restore the iphone from a previous backup before I can start the update to the latest iphone software.
Honestly,I have no idea what a normal person (with limited windows tech skills) would do other than call up a tech to get things working. Since the device manager now had numerous "apple devices" with exclamation points, the only way to get around this was not only to remove the device but also the driver and then manually reinstall the appropriate drivers, which of course were already on the computer that I had to point to--no need in trying to allow windows to go and 'automatically detect and download' the drivers in this case, even with windows 7 as it didn't work...
I really do not understand why they (Microsoft) have to play hardball when it comes to apple devices since I am pretty sure this would never happen with any other MP3 player... or would it?
