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Upgrades Google Windows Apple

Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar 570

Posted by timothy from the you-choose-the-teapot-you-choose-the-tempest dept.
Foofoobar writes "Due to a strike with the UK's postal system, people in Great Britain are getting copies of Windows 7 early and have already posted their experiences about the install process. Some have an easy time but others post installs taking 3 hours including Windows asking them to remove iTunes and Google toolbar prior to installation." The article indicates that many of these early users, though, are having better luck.
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Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar More

Some Users Say Win7 Wants To Remove iTunes, Google Toolbar

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  • Windows Upgrades (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Reason58 ( 775044 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:25PM (#29828949)
    If you upgrade Windows on top of another installation you are in for a bad time.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      If you upgrade Windows on top of another installation you are in for a bad time.

      Yup. Wipe and Load. Pretty much the mantra for the last dozen releases or so, yet people still scratch their head after watching the 17th BSOD fly across their screen...

      Microsoft OS releases should just come bundled with a brand-new hard drive. Would probably save themselves a lot of headache that way.

    • Re:Windows Upgrades (Score:5, Informative)

      by Itninja ( 937614 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @07:16PM (#29830057) Homepage
      I upgraded Vista Ultimate x64 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and had no significant issues [blogspot.com]. The 'upgrade advisor' program even advised me to deauthorize my installation of iTunes before continuing. No fuss, no muss, as they say.

      • Re:Windows Upgrades (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bill_kress ( 99356 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @08:43PM (#29830749)

        If it's asking you to de-authorize it and not remove it, that kind of makes sense.

        I imagine something in the upgrade process can fubar Apple's DRM system and cause it to make iTunes think it's not authorized. If that old install information remains in their database, it might be annoying to remove it (or not, I'm just guessing).

  • Sounds good to me (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:25PM (#29828953)

    iTunes and Google Toolbar are annoyances anyway. If they could permanently get rid of Quicktime, I'd be a happy camper.

    • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MyLongNickName ( 822545 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:31PM (#29829035) Journal

      Seriously. I actually like iTunes, but damn is it a resource hog. Sometimes it will chew up 90%+ of CPU for no apparent reason. It will often be unresponsive to clicks for a couple seconds. I am not sure what is so complicated about a music player that causes this.

      And then every time it asks me for an upgrade, it insists on installing Quicktime and other things that I don't want on my PC.

      I don't use Macs, but wonder if all of Steve's apps behave this way...

      • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:40PM (#29829145)
        As with most of these types of things, they perform far better on the original platform. Microsoft does the same thing with the Office suite, for instance. I tend to agree that Safari and Quicktime on Windows bug me, but on the Mac, they're great. iTunes on Windows is far inferior to the Mac version as well, not in terms of features, but certainly in terms of performance.

      • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:4, Informative)

        by maccodemonkey ( 1438585 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:41PM (#29829163)
        QuickTime is what iTunes uses for it's MP3/AAC decoding engine, which is why it's installing QuickTime. It's not just installing it to force it on you, it's actually a dependency. This is why iTunes on Mac OS X is still a QuickTime 7 app. It can't move to QuickTime X because QuickTime X is not cross platform.

        • That's not an excuse (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Rix ( 54095 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:01PM (#29829387)

          First off, there's no legitimate reason iTunes has to use QuickTime for MP3/AAC decoding. There are plenty of other options. If Apple insists on eating their own dogfood, there's no excuse for installing more than is necessary. Installing iTunes doesn't mean I want their stupid, crippled movie player or plugins.

        • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Bacon Bits ( 926911 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:14PM (#29829527)

          So why can't Apple do what the rest of the world does when it needs to use code from another application... use libraries. You don't need Quicktime's plugins or media player. Just the libraries should be sufficient.

        • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Insightful)

          by nmg196 ( 184961 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:27PM (#29829639)

          You posted that like you thought QuickTime is decoding engine, which it's actually an awful cheap media player from the early 90s. An encoding engine is a small DLL - not an entire media player application. There is no NEED for Apple to require QuickTime to be installed, but like much of Apple's software.

          iTunes is one of the most badly written awful pieces of software in mass usage today. It's no wonder Windows needs it to be out of the way while it's installing - it does a LOT of horrible things to your system including installing all sorts of pointless services and modifying many critical bluetooth settings.

      • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Informative)

        by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepplesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:49PM (#29829235) Homepage Journal

        And then every time it asks me for an upgrade, it insists on installing Quicktime and other things that I don't want on my PC.

        If you're talking about QuickTime Player and Safari, consider this: The iTunes application relies on the QuickTime framework to play media and the WebKit framework to display iTunes Store and iTunes LP. Trying to run iTunes without QuickTime and WebKit is like trying to run Windows Media Player without Windows Media or trying to run VLC without libavcodec.

      • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Funny)

        by oldspewey ( 1303305 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:50PM (#29829251)

        Sometimes it will chew up 90%+ of CPU for no apparent reason.

        It's thinking different.

      • Re:Sounds good to me (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bertok ( 226922 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @09:14PM (#29830963)

        Seriously. I actually like iTunes, but damn is it a resource hog. Sometimes it will chew up 90%+ of CPU for no apparent reason. It will often be unresponsive to clicks for a couple seconds. I am not sure what is so complicated about a music player that causes this.

        And then every time it asks me for an upgrade, it insists on installing Quicktime and other things that I don't want on my PC.

        I don't use Macs, but wonder if all of Steve's apps behave this way...

        I actually need and use iTunes (to talk to my iPhone), but one thing that shits me to no end is that every time I get a point-release update of iTunes, it installs two hidden "on startup" items. I have to use the 'msconfig' tool to get rid of them every bloody time.

        Programs should really stop the habit of silently installing background processes that mostly do nothing except slow down the computer's boot time.

        For example, since Vista, Windows has had a great task scheduler API that lets developer schedule system tasks like "check for update" on lots of complex criteria, such a "30 minutes after the PC goes idle". That way, the processes are only run once per machine (not user), don't slow down the boot, and can close to conserve memory after the check is done.

        And don't get me started with the hideous piece-of-s*** that is Bonjour, which is a system service installed by iTunes that intercepts and modifies DNS requests. It opens your computer to vulnerabilities and has broken some apps. A music player has absolutely no business fucking around with system-wide DNS.

        Every time someone complains that their machine is 'slow', it's either a virus, or I just use msconfig to disable the 50 startup processes installed by crap like iTunes. Miraculously, it turns out that there was nothing wrong with their hardware after all.

      • I am not sure what is so complicated about a music player that causes this.

        This is simple - the Geniuses at apple haven't figured out this whole "multitasking UI" yet. "Determining gapless playback info" over a network drive is the perfect example of this. It seems to process files in groups of 10 or 20... and every time it starts a new batch, the UI locks up until it finishes (30s or so). Then you can move the mouse for a few seconds... until it starts the next batch.

        It's not so noticeable on a local hard drive, but it's pretty damned hard to miss when you have 10k songs on the network. The concept of "worker thread" has not yet occurred to these people.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Blue Stone ( 582566 )
      >If they could permanently get rid of Quicktime, I'd be a happy camper. Windows 7 has native support for Quicktime files through Windows Media Player - and Explorer - with thumbnails and everything! Sounds like your dream's come true.

  • You can add them back... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by icebike ( 68054 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:26PM (#29828965)

    First, this obviously applies only to upgrades.

    Second, iTunes does horrible things to your USB stack, and it needs to go.

    After Win7 is installed you can add it back, and not lose any of your music.

    Don't make a big deal out of Microsoft trying to remove the effects of misbehaved software corrupting the install.

    There is no issue here.

  • Wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kratisto ( 1080113 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:27PM (#29828973)
    Windows 7 recognizes how bad iTunes is? Even XP can't do that! I'm switching right now... Where'd I put my MSDNAA login?

  • So (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:27PM (#29828977)

    If they didn't do this we would be reading about how the upgrade breaks competitor's software. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

  • Summary is Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:28PM (#29828995)

    TFA says Windwos7 asks you to remove some drivers and apps and then successfully re-installs them when done. That's not quite what the summary implies.

  • About iTunes -- from the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by rwade ( 131726 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:29PM (#29829013)

    Here's the a quote from the article of a user who found that Windows 7 asked that the user uninstall iTunes:

    ...and I reinstalled iTunes which worked fine without any configuration, my library and apps were all there.

    While I agree it is suspicious that iTunes and the Google Toolbar were the only applications that Windows 7 ask that particular user to uninstall, it should be made clear that Windows 7 did not impede the user from using that software or foist a MS application on him.

    I will note that many users had significant difficulties with using non-Apple software after upgrading to Snow Leopard.

    I myself have had significant difficulties using already installed software after upgrading various shared libraries via ports on FreeBSD.

    I would suggest that these issues are along the lines of what Microsoft was doing when it asked the user to uninstall iTunes and the Google Toolbar.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by DevStar ( 943486 )
      It's not that suspicious. It asked me to uninstall SQL Server 2008 and MagicDisc. I uninstalled Magic Disk, but SQL Server I decided to roll the dice on, because it is a pain getting it set back up the way I like it on my dev box. A month or so later, no problems (I'm on MSDN).

  • Oh, FFS! (Score:5, Informative)

    by R2.0 ( 532027 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:29PM (#29829017)

    From TFA:

    "The upgrade process gave me a list of about 5 programs to un-install," he says. "Which I did, it was some drivers, iTunes and the Google Toolbar. After that the whole thing was automatic, I just left it sitting there... At the end of it, Windows put back the drivers I removed, and I reinstalled iTunes which worked fine without any configuration, my library and apps were all there. I have to say that is about the most successful Windows upgrade I have ever personally experienced."

    Yep - a disaster in the making.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:30PM (#29829023)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • In fact I am not anywhere near a computer. I am doing everything remotely: sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

    • Re:Just One Observation... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by grcumb ( 781340 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:55PM (#29829905) Homepage Journal

      And if these people **REALLY** believe that upgrading any OS in this fashion, let alone MS Windows, will end up giving them a nice clean install afterwards, then they probably shouldn't be anywhere near a computer in the first place.

      You're generalising. I've had:

      • Servers that have been in continuous operation for 5+ years and have been upgraded over several major version changes.
      • A Windows machine from that cleanly upgraded from 98 - NT4 - 2000. (I haven't run Windows on my own hardware since)
      • A home computer that has been continuously upgraded from Ubuntu 6.10.
      • A Mac laptop that was cleanly upgraded from 10.2 - 10.3 - 10.5

      In fact, while I have on rare occasions found it easier to install afresh than to upgrade, that's been the exception, not the rule.

      The problem is not n00bs who are naive enough not to plan their way through an upgrade. The problem is junior and intermediate geeks who think the sum of their knowledge and experience is all there is. Upgrades require care and attention and planning. Just because it's currently beyond your capacity to do it doesn't mean it can't be done.

  • Crappy Summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Codger ( 96717 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:32PM (#29829061)

    What a crappy, dishonest summary! I despise MS as much as anyone, but this is too much. Yes, it asked them to remove iTunes, etc., but then it reinstalled them! And everything worked.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Stripe7 ( 571267 )
      I play a MMO "World of Kung Fu" and folks there are saying that the game is not compatible with Windows 7. As it is a game I play daily that means I won't be bothering with an upgrade until a version of the game comes out that does work with Windows 7. Probably not Microsoft's issue and more along the line of the game not following Microsoft programming guidelines but the fallout is anyone wanting to play the game cannot as yet upgrade to Windows 7. I wonder at the list of games that will work with Windows

    • Re:Crappy Summary (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GF678 ( 1453005 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:06PM (#29829457)

      I despise MS as much as anyone, but this is too much.

      For me, the more Slashdot bashes Microsoft unfairly, the less I despise Microsoft. If Microsoft is supposedly so rotten, why does Slashdot feel the need to lie? It makes Slashdot look like it's run by a bunch of idiots with an agenda, and makes me question how much of the bashing of MS is legitimate.

      • Re:Crappy Summary (Score:4, Interesting)

        by rhizome ( 115711 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @09:36PM (#29831067) Homepage Journal

        makes me question how much of the bashing of MS is legitimate.

        Sure it's "legitimate," but consider the possibility that Slashdot is narcissistic in this regard. They've identified so much with an anti-Microsoft perspective that they are stuck with being critical even if Microsoft improves. Their identity comes before anything else, and they are pathologically driven to post submissions such as this one in order to protect The Slashdot at all costs. In other words, par for the course.

  • Misleading summary (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Coopjust ( 872796 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:36PM (#29829107)
    A) Only upgrade installs
    B) The 7 installer detects known incompatible software and asks you to uninstall it, making it very clear that it's going to do so.

    This is a non-story.

  • Lie about windows to get posted on slashdot (Score:5, Informative)

    by Useful Wheat ( 1488675 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:39PM (#29829129)

    Did the poster even read the article? The summary is longer than the sentence that mentions this.

    "The upgrade process gave me a list of about 5 programs to un-install," he says. "Which I did, it was some drivers, iTunes and the Google Toolbar." What does the author say about this horrible, horrible thing? "I have to say that is about the most successful Windows upgrade I have ever personally experienced."

    That's not sarcasm, that's not some biting commentary at microsoft, that is a user who is content with his instillation of Windows 7 on a computer. This is not an article about how microsoft is afraid of competition and squashes even the slightest attempt at competition, this is about how 3 people were relatively happy with their instillations.

    The poster picked the single most insignificant statement out of context, and made it their headline. I'm not sure if the poster was being ironic, or trying to troll linux fans into reading a pro-microsoft article, but the summary has almost nothing to do with the article.

    The upgrade didn't make you purge your computer of open source software. Windows 7 didn't make you uninstall OO.O, or even Lotus Notes (which really, needs to die). The upgrade did not purge your computer of competitor's software, it just so happened that those 2 programs needed to be reinstalled.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by CannonballHead ( 842625 )

      I agree, but I can't resist...

      content with his instillation of Windows 7 on a computer

      I wish I could figure out how to instill Windows into my computer. Maybe even infuse it with Windows.

    • Re:Lie about windows to get posted on slashdot (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:06PM (#29829447)

      The upgrade did not purge your computer of competitor's software, it just so happened that those 2 programs needed to be reinstalled.

      I can even tell you specifically why those 2 programs should be uninstalled then reinstalled after the upgrade. No, it's not because Microsoft's trying to stick it to competitors.

      iTunes messes with your USB stack by installing system-level drivers, and since the whole underlying OS is changing, those drivers will likely not work right after an upgrade for reasons that should be blatantly obvious to anyone who considers themselves 'good with computers'. The best practice is to let the iTunes installer see that it's installing on Windows 7 and configure the drivers correctly for the new OS.

      Google Toolbar installs differently depending on which version of Internet Explorer it's installing into. Vista users may be using IE7, whereas Windows 7 comes with IE8. Technically using the IE7 interfaces to extend IE8 is supported, but it forces some backward-compatibility hacks to be enabled, which slows the entire browser down. By uninstalling and reinstalling after the upgrade, you get the IE8 version of the Google Toolbar and it runs better.

  • Compatibility? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by holiggan ( 522846 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:47PM (#29829209)

    Can I play a bit of devil's advocate? My guess is that the need to remove iTunes and Google toolbar might be related to compatibility issues (i.e., the version that the users have currently not being the "latest" one, or the one "100%" compatible with 7). Without any more concret info, like the version number for iTunes of all the machines involved, if 7 "demands" diferent things with the same version installed, etc, we can't really be sure what's the issue here, and assume it's for the best for the users (not having potentialy incompatible software installed on 7).

    Now before someone says "but I've been using iTunes 2.0 with 7 since forever!!", well, I'm just speculating as much as the next guy :) Afterall, this is Slashdot, right? ;)

  • One more /. non Issue here (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @05:53PM (#29829303)

    I'm definitely not a windows fan(or user). I'm totally a Linux guy, but it seams there's no issue here. The only issue I see is /. loosing credibility with this kind of stories. A major version change of operating system should be installed by a clean install and only morons upgrade. It's only natural that in the process of a new installation Windows tries to uninstall shitty software that mess with the core of the system.

    Windows has plenty of real issues to bash about without this kind of shit.

    If I was some windows user or Fan I would say: "If this is the kind of arguments /. has against windows all the other windows stories must be non-issues also"

  • eh, I had no problems with the latest versions of both iTunes and Google Desktop (which includes Google Toolbar.)

    Maybe they had older versions?

    Heck, I had more compatibility issues upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

  • iTunes is evil (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Toreo asesino ( 951231 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @06:11PM (#29829503) Journal

    For some reason, Apple decided to use their own USB driver; one not exactly known for it's stability, evidently. Yes, Apple would rather risk your system instability than use a standard tried & tested driver to write files to any iPod. That'll be why Windows 7 doesn't like it I expect.

    http://www.google.com/search?q=itunes+BSOD [google.com]

    Sometimes I wonder if Apple make PCs crash deliberately to fuel their ad-war

  • I refuse to use it. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by B5_geek ( 638928 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @07:43PM (#29830269)

    I will not install or run win7 until there is a 3rd party alternative or a MS patch that gives me explorer back.

  • So how many reboots are required? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Edmund Blackadder ( 559735 ) on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @08:00PM (#29830419)

    True story: I recently got a new computer and set it up for dual booting Windows/linux. It took me more time and more restarts to get Windows working normally even though the computer actually came with windows preinstalled and i had to instal linux from scratch.

  • Early? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Wednesday October 21, 2009 @08:28PM (#29830643) Journal

    I've had it for a week or two now. Just installed it on bare metal yesterday (as opposed to a VM).

    Apparently MSDN Academic Alliance gets it just as early.

    My biggest issue is: eight gigs? Really?

    Other than that, it does seem to be an improvement over XP, so far. And fresh installs are almost always better than upgrades.

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