Hello Vista, iTunes 7.0.2 / Windows Vista Hack
Loading ...I have been waiting to upgrade my work laptop to Windows Vista ever since RTM came out. I have it running at home and it’s great. The only issue that I had was that I could not get iTunes to behave and for a while the songs that I purchased from the iTunes store could not be accessed in any way because iTunes would not authorize my computer and kept giving me a cryptic error. Well, a co-worker gave me a handy book about Vista and its features and I started reading about the Program Compatibility Wizard, which allows you to choose executable files and set them to run as if they were in older Windows Operating Systems. This includes the following:
- Windows 95
- NT 4 (SP5)
- Windows 98/Me
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP (SP2)
Here is how the Wizard Works.
First step: Start the Wizard. This is not as easy as it might seem. Open the Program Compatibility Wizard by clicking the Start button > Control Panel > Programs >Use an older program with this version of Windows.
Second Step: The Wizard Starts Click Next on the Welcome to the Program Compatibility Wizard Dialog Box.
Third Step: I chose the I want to Locate the program manually option here. If you choose the I want to choose from a list of programs, it will search your machine for a list of executables to formulate the list. This takes a while, which is why I took the third option. Obviously, click Next to move to the next step.
Fourth Step: Locate the program. Click Browse and navigate to it. In the case of iTunes it would be c:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.exe. Click Next once you have selected it.
Fifth Step: Choose Compatibility Mode. In this case I selected Windows XP (Service Pack 2), which works perfectly. Click Next once you select it.
Sixth Step (Not Necessary for iTunes): You are able to select some specific display settings in this step. I chose none of these for iTunes. Click Next.
Seventh Step: You can now choose to Run this program as an administrator. I turned User Account Control Off on my home machine, so this is grayed out for me and will automatically do this. If you still have UAC On, then I would select this. It would avoid an additional warning message every time you launch the program. You are already going to get one. Either Select it or don’t. Either way, click Next.
Eighth Step: Almost done. You will now review the settings and Click Next to have the Wizard test them.
If you are running Aero Glass, your screen will flicker and you will get this message:
Vista will revert to Windows Basic, then you will get this message:
Click OK and iTunes will start.
Navigate in iTunes to your Purchased music and click Play. You will we asked to login to iTunes to Authorize the computer and it will authorize and play the song.
Ninth Step: If things worked, select Yes, set this program to always use these compatibility settings and click Next.
The wizard will flash a dialog box like this for about 4 seconds.
It will then present you with this screen. You can either send the information to Microsoft or not. Select one or the other and click Next.
Last Step: Click Finish. The Wizard closes and you’re done.
Without this Compatibility Wizard, you would be dead in the water with your purchased music until Apple releases the Vista-friendly version of iTunes. For now, this will work and I am happy. Once Apple releases the new version with Vista Support, you will simply run the Wizard again and during the Fifth Step, choose Do not apply a compatibility mode and finish the Wizard just the same.
22 Comments
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January 7th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Nice detailed write-up. You’ve been dugg (or is it digged?).
January 25th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
you are the best… perfect writeup!
January 26th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
Followed the instructions step by step, did not work for me. Still indicates that I’m not authorized to play. Any other ideas? Hopefully, a new version of itunes will be available on 1/30 when Vista is “officially” released.
January 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Dude, you freaking rock! I spent like 1/2 hr chatting with Apple Tech-Support only to get the “well we don’t officially support Vista…so…sorry” ending…
Thanks man!
January 26th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
The only way that I could get it to work was set the user account up with admin privledges. Not the best solution. But until the new version comes out of iTunes that supports Vista, I guess it is the only option.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
I tried the compatability mode steps you provided above, which didn’t work. What did work was running iTunes.exe as Administrator. Then, I authorized one of my songs. Once the authorization worked, I quit iTunes and started it under regular permissions and the purchased songs were still authorized!
I haven’t tried purchasing new songs but so far so good!
January 30th, 2007 at 9:55 am
I did forget to mention that I am the administrator on my machine, which is why this worked. I am glad it was helpful to you guys. I do agree with Paul in that I am eagerly awaiting the release of a Vista supported version of iTunes.
January 31st, 2007 at 12:30 am
Man! Thanks, this worked like a charm. I spent hours on the friggin phone with not only Apple but Microsoft (Vista kept crashing). I can’t believe it was this simple. Thank you!
January 31st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Excellent write up. Very detailed and everything proceeded exactly as expected…that is, until I got to the end, and iTunes loaded and I got a high pitched sqeal from my speakers. I had to shut down quickly, and have not been brave enough to try it again. Perhaps I did something wrong? Anyone else have that happen?
January 31st, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Awesome!!! Thanks so much for the help. Was just about to contact
Apple….
January 31st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Greg,
Are you running 7.0.2? I had several sound card issues with earlier versions of 7.0.
Dave
January 31st, 2007 at 8:12 pm
I have been horrified since last night after installing Vista ultimate, and my purchased music from iTunes are not able to play. Thanks for this tip. Wonderful!!!
January 31st, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I just discovered an easier way thanks to iLounge… and you can leave Aero on. Make sure iTunes is closed. Go into “Windows Explorer” and find yuor iTunes Application icon and right-click, select run as administrator. Then authorize the machine. You may have to do this twice (I did) but previous purchases worked and so did the new purchase of 24 from Monday night… noe, if anyone can tell me why my new DirecTV HDDVR blips all the time… wait, that is for another forum
February 1st, 2007 at 1:18 am
Great job. I thought I was lost and had no clue on how to save my music. Thanks again. Great directions.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:59 am
Yeah Dave…I just reconfirmed that I am using iTunes ver. 7.0.2. I may have made a mistake, so I might try again…right after I try the “right clicking” that Schke described. Thanks for the tips!!!!!
February 1st, 2007 at 8:05 am
k…wow…the “right clicking” thing as described by Schke worked perfectly. Only had to do it once, and I have all my music back!!!! Big smiles here. Thanks for your site, Dave!!!!
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Thank you man I started having real doubts about buy vista you saved my day.
February 2nd, 2007 at 7:09 pm
yeah…well my joy was short lived. Now when I even try to run iTunes my computer shuts down.
February 3rd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
You might be taking some chances according to apple…
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/03/1852245&from=rss
March 29th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Fucking Mint! nice one mate!
July 17th, 2007 at 4:53 am
Great write up, thanks a lot!
August 10th, 2008 at 4:26 am
The truth is, we shouldnt have to do any of this with iTunes to get it to work.
Isn’t apple stuff just meant to work?