Selection of "Devices" tab causing iTunes to freeze up

Hi everyone...

I just installed iTunes 8.0.2.20 onto my laptop with the sole intention of being able to plug my iPod into it so as to listen to the iPod through the laptop's speakers at work.

Since my iTunes library is on my PC at home, I knew going into it that once iTunes was installed onto my work laptop I'd need to disable the automatic synch so that it wouldn't erase my iPod when I plugged it into the laptop.

I just installed iTunes onto the laptop and it works just fine. When I go to EDIT and select PREFERENCES I get the full assortment of tabs, all of which seem to work just fine except for the one stinkin' tab that I happen to need: DEVICES.

Every time I select DEVICES it causes iTunes to freeze up, thus requiring me to do the old Ctrl/Alt/Delete trick to get out of it.

I've tried uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling it and still it keeps on happening.

If anyone out there can help me get past this I sure would appreciate it. It's so frustrating to not be able to get to the one tab that I need in order to do such a simple thing!

Thanks and have a good day...

Dave
Maple Shade, NJ

PS: Just in case it matters, the laptop in question is a Dell Lattitude D630 running Windows XP.