Yes, you heard me right, Microsoft is not the only company that is prone to releasing updates that can cause your computer to crash!

In this case, I received a call from a client today who reported that iTunes suddenly was not working, and would immediately crash when started. He tried to reinstall iTunes, but it went from bad to worse.

It didn’t take long to find that a slew of people (slew = more than I can count) were reporting similar crashes, and it appears to be caused by version 11.1.4 that Apple rolled out at the end of last week (around 22-Jan-2014).

Fortunately, the work involved to fix this was pretty straightforward, but with some minor bumps in the process.

First, a quick summary of the steps required:

1. Uninstall iTunes and its related components and reboot
2. Delete associated Apple program files and reboot
3. Download and reinstall iTunes

Now for the details!

Step 1 – Uninstall iTunes and related components

Apple recommends to remove the following programs in this specific order:

• iTunes – note: when uninstalling iTunes, be sure to leave your user profile & settings
• Apple Software Update
• Apple Mobile Device Support
• Bonjour
• Apple Application Support

Then reboot your computer

Step 2 – Delete associated Apple program files
You need to confirm that the following folders have been removed. If any are left behind, remove them now:

• C:\Program Files\Bonjour
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\
• C:\Program Files\iTunes\
• C:\Program Files\iPod\

If you have a 64-bit version of Windows, these are the folders you need to confirm are removed:

• C:\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\
• C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\
• C:\Program Files (x86)\iPod\

NOTE: some files may not delete:

It is possible that you may run into some files or folders that will not delete, because these are programs currently running that are using these files. If that happens to you, here are the steps I used to delete those files:

• Open up an elevated command prompt
• Type: start taskmgr — and the Task Manager window will display

For the following steps, leave both windows (Command prompt and Task Manager) open!

• From the Task Manager window, click on the Processes tab, locate explorer.exe, right click on it and click End process. This will close your Windows desktop, but don’t worry, we will restart it in a few moments.
• Now, switch over to the Command prompt window
• Using the CD (change directory) and DEL (delete) commands, go to the folder with the file that won’t delete, and then delete the file. In my case, as an example, the commands I entered were:

  cd \
  cd Program Files (X86)
  cd Common files
  cd Apple
  cd Internet Services
  del shellstreams64.dll

• Repeat the above steps, if necessary, if there were other files you could not delete.

Now let’s restart the Windows desktop.

• Switch back to the Task Manager window
• Click File –> New Task (run) –> and then type: explorer.exe and the windows desktop should redisplay.
• At this point, go back and delete those folders that did not previously delete.
• I recommend rebooting the computer again, and then verifying that all the folders identified above are deleted

Step 3: Download and install iTunes

I think you can handle this part on your own!
But just in case, here’s the link to get you started:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/