apple mobile device usb driver

Purchased an iPhone4 (not S) a week ago. On initial attempt to sync to iTunes, phone did not show up in left pane of window. Called Apple support and after an hour of fruitless attempts to resolve by trying other USB ports, etc., was advised to unistall iTunes and all other Apple software in a very specific order and then reinstall. Following reinstall, phone was recognized and iTunes opened when phone was connected. However, since then, phone has failed to connect numerous times and only way I can get it to connect (other than unistalling and reinstalling all software again, which i have done twice more) is to open device Manager and unistall the apple mobile device usb driver, plug in the phone and then it reinstalls the driver and all is well until the next sync. Needless to say, this is a pain in the butt each time I want to sync.

Anyone have any ideas?? Running Windows XP Home on a P4 Dell system.