Why doesn't iTunes launch under Windows 10 Creator?

Question

Level 1

14 points

Why doesn't iTunes launch under Windows 10 Creator?

Today I updated my Windows 10 Home installation on a 64-bit laptop to "Creator", version 1703. After the update (and a couple of reboots just for luck), I tried launching my previously-installed iTunes. The little spinner turned for four seconds, and then ... nothing further. The Task Manager showed an 9.0MB quiescent iTunes process that wasn't there before the launch attempt.

So I downloaded and installed the latest iTunes for x64 Windows, v 12.6 (and rebooted for luck), but nothing changed.

I had read that an interaction with the Bluetooth icon tray app BTTray.exe might cause similar behavior under Windows 10 v.1703, so I set the registry variable \\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Widcomm\BTConfig\General\BtTrayInStartup to 0, rebooted, and checked that indeed bttray.exe wasn't running, but it didn't solve my iTunes problem.

I have also read that launching iTunes as Administrator works under Windows 10 v.1703, but that wouldn't help me since the bazillions of files (music, photos, backups, ...) that iTunes needs to access are located on SMB shares that Administrator can't see.

iTunes for Windows is still an important part of why many people buy iPhones and iPads. Does Apple see an iTunes incompatibility with the latest version of Windows as a problem? Is there a fix in the works? Does anyone know a reliable work-around?

Posted on Apr 24, 2017 10:50 AM

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Answer 1

Jesse_K

Community Specialist

Apr 25, 2017 5:26 PM in response to mccreigh

Hey mccreigh,

I see from your post you are not able to open iTunes on your computer.

I would suggest using the article below to help troubleshoot this issue.

Fix unexpected quits or launch issues in iTunes for Windows

Cheers.

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Answer 2

Jesse_K

Community Specialist

Apr 26, 2017 12:34 PM in response to mccreigh

mccreigh,

We would, indeed, suggest a full uninstall of iTunes and reinstalling. The following article give a walkthrough of the steps needed to do this.

Remove and reinstall iTunes and related software components for Windows 7 and later

As far as your backup and music and photos, those are kept separate from the actual app so uninstalling iTunes will not remove them.

Media that you buy from the iTunes Store or songs that you import from CDs are saved in your My Music folder by default. They won't be deleted when you remove iTunes. Although it's highly unlikely that you'll lose any of your iTunes Library when following the steps below, it's always good practice to make regular backups of your iTunes library.

Cheers.

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

272,943 points

May 21, 2017 3:07 PM in response to mccreigh

iTunes 12.6.0.x had a habit of not opening properly for some users. 12.5.5.5 or 12.6.1.25 should work better.

For general advice see Troubleshooting issues with iTunes for Windows updates.

The steps in the second box are a guide to removing everything related to iTunes and then rebuilding it which is often a good starting point unless the symptoms indicate a more specific approach. Right-click on the downloaded setup file and use run as administrator. It may just possibly help to pre-install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable.

Review the other boxes and the list of support documents further down the page in case one of them applies.

The further information area has direct links to the current and recent builds in case you have problems downloading, or want to revert to an older version if the current one won't work properly for you at the moment.

Your library and device backups should be unaffected by these steps but there are links to backup and recovery advice should it be needed.

tt2

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Answer 4

mccreigh Author

Level 1

14 points

Apr 26, 2017 12:23 AM in response to Jesse_K

Thanks for your apparently scripted reply, Jesse_K, but this is seems to be a new problem between iTunes and the new Windows 10 Creator edition that is beginning to roll out to hundreds of millions of computers. I elected to request an early roll-out on one of my computers just to see what issues the new edition might raise. So far I have had a Bluetooth USB dongle driver problem, which I could resolve by removing and reinstalling its driver software, and the iTunes-won't-start problem, which updating iTunes to 12.6 didn't fix. If you are not a chatbot, in your considered opinion might it make a difference if I completely removed iTunes (using, say, Control Panel > Programs and Features > iTunes > Uninstall), rebooted, and then installed iTunes v12.6? If you do recommend that, how would you suggest I preserve my existing backups, music, photos, etc?

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Answer 5

mccreigh Author

Level 1

14 points

Apr 27, 2017 6:18 AM in response to Jesse_K

OK, completely uninstalled, rebooted, and reinstalled iTunes v12.6. On launch it still hangs in exactly the same way: four seconds of spinner, then nothing further. Afterward the Task Manager shows the same quiescent iTunes process using about 9MB of memory. Further ideas, or is it time to bump this up to engineering?

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Answer 6

mccreigh Author

Level 1

14 points

Apr 28, 2017 2:32 AM in response to Jesse_K

This morning I used Windows' Task Manager, Sysinternals' procexp.exe, and Debugging Tools for Windows 10 (WinDbg) to get more information about the hung iTunes.exe process. It has five "real" threads, each of them waiting for something. To me the most suspicious one looks like the one that started at !GdipDisposeImage+0x4020, is roughly forty levels deep in its call stack, and is waiting at !ZwAlpcSendWaitReceivePort+0x14 for the condition WrtLpcReply.

Other postings on this topic suggest that this iTunes vs Windows 10 Creator problem is somehow Bluetooth-related. I wouldn't have guessed that iTunes would deal directly with Bluetooth under Windows, but various recent postings suggest that it does, and that the Windows 10 Creator release handles Bluetooth differently under the covers than earlier releases of Windows 10 did. The intent, it seems, was to be backward-compatible with earlier Windows 7-10 Bluetooth hardware drivers, but it hasn't been a seamless success. One thing that's a bit unusual about my problematic HP ENVY 15 laptop computer is that its Bluetooth hardware is external, an ASUS USB-BT400 connected directly to one of the USB-3 ports of the laptop (not through a hub). Its driver is the latest Broadcom 12.0.1.658 (7/14/2015) version, which worked perfectly with prior releases of Windows 10, and seems to work correctly with Windows 10 Creator after an uninstall/reinstall.

Does any of that ring bells for your engineers?

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Answer 7

SergeiBy

Level 1

4 points

May 1, 2017 11:16 PM in response to mccreigh

Hello,

I was able to start iTunes x64 under the Windows Creators edition.

All you need is run it in Compatiblility mode (windows 8 in my case) + run as Admin.

Go to the pgms properties-> compatibility and set it all up.

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Answer 8

mccreigh Author

Level 1

14 points

May 2, 2017 12:22 AM in response to mccreigh

Over the weekend I updated another of my computers to Windows 10 Creator version, a Dell XPS 13 laptop with internal Bluetooth hardware, I installed iTunes, and iTunes runs perfectly on that computer. One reads that the problem might be Bluetooth-related, and yet the drivers on both my computers, one with a broken iTunes and one with a working iTunes, seem to be the same Broadcom 12.0.0.7030 suite, differing only in the .hex files that apparently characterize their USB ID's: the one with the broken iTunes identifies as ASUS USB-BT400 and the one with the working iTunes identifies as DW1560 Bluetooth 4.0 LE.

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Answer 9

bfallona

Level 1

9 points

May 21, 2017 1:16 PM in response to mccreigh

It's pretty sad how much trouble it is to run iTunes. After the creator update, I couldn't open itunes. Tried all the usual methods and finally decided to go to the painful reinstall Windows completely. Yes I did a clean install on a brand new hard drive with no old windows. Still nothing. So I come here & try ALL the solutions and still nothing. I even ran the Window Troubleshooter & tried Windows 8 & Windows Vista still no luck. I guess we will have to wait for the "genius" at Apple to fix this mess. Yet ALL my other media programs work fine ie Media Monkey, Winamp etc.

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Answer 10

bfallona

Level 1

9 points

May 23, 2017 3:06 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks turingtest to actually read the post AND provide a solution - many many thanks. I am not a programmer nor pretend to understand the difficulty in writing programs. But it would seem to me that Apple could not only find a solution , but make it both easy to install & uninstall iTunes. I had to go to Copy Trans driver installer ( which also offers to uninstall iTunes only) to get iTunes & the tons of extra software so I could then reinstall. What worked for me was to go back to the Jan update & it installed & ran just fine. And since I was around when the 1st computers ie TRS-80 & C64 & IBM clones, it still is crazy how difficult this was. Just a quick question, is it safe to update now that I got the old one working? In the meantime, I am going to set a restore point in Windows so I can go back to the current state. Thanks

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Answer 11

turingtest2

Level 10

272,943 points

May 23, 2017 3:34 PM in response to bfallona

I cannot promise that 12.6.1.25 will work properly for you, but it does seem a lot more stable and with fewer obvious bugs than 12.6.0.100. At least you now have the resources to go back to an older build if it doesn't work for you.

tt2

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