"Welcome to your new iPod" screen not appearing | Windows 10

Hi All,

I'm at my wits end and hoping someone (turingtest2?) can assist! ! I'm using Windows 10 and I only have Microsoft Defender in use, no other 3rd party anti-virus and I'm logged in as admin.

The problem: After launching iTunes, I plug in my iPod and iTunes "hangs" as if it sees the iPod, but it can't manage it. When I unplug the iPod, iTunes comes back to life and once in awhile I can briefly see the "Welcome to your new iPod" screen appear, and then it goes away.

When in iTunes, I dot not see the "Welcome to your iPod" screen in a background window. If I plug in my iPod first, and then launch iTunes, the program loads and I get the spinning wheel until I unplug the iPod, then iTunes comes back to life.

My feeling is if I can get to the Welcome iPod screen, I can start the process to get my iPod recognized and synced up.

I have followed to the letter all the instructions under https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-10691 as well as anything else I can find via Google and YouTube. I'm using USB driver usbaapl64.inf (6KB) from turingtest2

At one point, everything worked with the latest iTunes version from the Microsoft Store (12.12.1.1), but at some point iTunes stopped being able to see and/or sync to my iPod.

It successfully shows up in Windows Explorer as my F drive, so Windows sees the device:

And I see it under Device Manager as well, but only as USB drive, not as an Apple Device:

I've uninstalled and re-installed versions back to 12.10.10 without any luck and currently have 12.11.4.15 installed. After a fresh install of 12.11.4.15, when I plug in my iPod it asks to install the iPod Support software and I see it successfully installed under 'Programs', as well as Bonjour:

My iPod was fully functional before this. Hoping someone can shed some light.

Thanks in advance!

Jim.