Bgee- wrote:
Ok, so I do agree what you are saying makes sense, but it doesn't really seem to fully jive with my similar situation. I came across the same issue today as OP is having. Win7 iTunes says its updated, but then tells me I need to update to run the restore on my 7gen iPad which has the latest iOS15.4.
That sounds to me like exactly the same situation to me: iOS 15 requires a version of iTunes that a Windows 7 machine cannot use. The fact that you cannot use the backup made on Windows 7 for your iOS 15 phone may explain why Apple state that you need a later version of iTunes; in other words, the process is unreliable.
So this brings us to what it is I'm not understanding; why do I need a software version update on anything at all when I'm trying to restore an iPad using the back-up and the computer it was created on, just last week?!
Perhaps the older version of iTunes can read the phone in order to create a backup but cannot write back to the phone, possibly because of the additional steps that the phone running iOS 15 requires. While it all makes sense to a software engineer, I doubt that we ordinary folk would be able to understand every detail of the newer software, which in turn means that simply have to accept what we're told. (In this respect, I do.)
I know very little about the inner workings of software (except that it's quite boring), and I certainly don't speak for Apple in this respect, but consider this: you can not reasonably expect Apple to write iTunes to work specifically with software (Windows 7) that Microsoft (the owner of Windows 7) no longer supports.
So now I gotta shell out well over $100 for a Windows 10 license, just so that I can have the pleasure of screwing up a perfectly running Win7 rig that i built and am quite happy with?!
Before you go that far, I strongly suggest that you make sure that your computer can run Windows 10. Let me explain: when Windows 10 was first launched, Microsoft's checker clearly stated that I could run Windows 10 on my machine. However, subsequent updates to Windows 10 put a stop to that and I had to buy a new computer.
Here's a tip though: go for a Windows 11 machine. The computer I bought less than two years ago to replace my Windows 7 machine will not run Windows 11. But of course, Microsoft wait until now to tell me this! Ggrrr!