Topic: iTunes on XP question

[Clark Kent]

My GF has a user account on my dell, and thus far I have not been too impressed by musicmatch or the windows media player, so I am considering going back to my old friend iTunes on this machine.  I know there are people on here that do not like iTunes, at least the windows version, but I'd also like to hear soem positive experiences as well in order to decide whether to put it on this machine or not. 
That advantages are that I would have a music database that could easily connect with the macs I own via wireless, and I should be able to more easily load files back and forth between the two machines.  The dowsides, I know little of.

[Bonk]

Don't do it! Don't do it! It is a virus, it will cripple the PC!

Unfortunately the "realplayer" bastards have co-opted Xing: http://www.xingtech.com/
I would say winamp but it has been taken from nullsoft by AOL and "phones home" to AOL servers on every startup.

The windows media player works fine, but QNX's native media player is far superior. Alternatively the X clone of winamp XMMS is fine and does not "phone home" to AOL...

I know you did not want to hear this, but there it is anyway!

[Clark Kent]

I'm aware of your opinion of iTunes, and other than it sucking up CPU power, I don't know what other problems it has caused for you.  Could you be more specific?

[Bonk]

That is all, taking up 100% of the cpu pn a P4 system while doing nothing visible or audible, that should be enough to damn it to the annals of virus history.

[Clark Kent]

interestingly enough, when I posed this same question on the Apple forums, I was told that there actually are worms out there that pretend to be iTunes.exe, that are not and have nothing to do with Apple computer.  In other words bonk, It might be possible that you DID load a virus and you've been blaming Apple all along for something they never made. 
In other cases it does use 100% in rare situations when launching, or prepping a CD to be burned.

[kmelew]

interestingly enough, when I posed this same question on the Apple forums, I was told that there actually are worms out there that pretend to be iTunes.exe, that are not and have nothing to do with Apple computer.  In other words bonk, It might be possible that you DID load a virus and you've been blaming Apple all along for something they never made. 
In other cases it does use 100% in rare situations when launching, or prepping a CD to be burned.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/startups/itunes.exe-10325.html

[Bonk]

Thanks for the link kmelew, I kinda suspected that might be the case... a worm under the guise of itunes. Kids get sucked in so easliy. 

[jualdeaux]

I have been using iTunes for quite some time now and have not had any problems with it sucking cpu time. Well, no more than any other program does. Mine usually uses less than 10% when it is actually playing songs. it uses quite a bit of memory though. I love the ease of setting up playlists, especially smart playlists that update themselves when you add new tunes to the library. Also, for me, most other media players are too small and cluttered to use easily.

[Bonk]

interestingly enough, when I posed this same question on the Apple forums, I was told that there actually are worms out there that pretend to be iTunes.exe, that are not and have nothing to do with Apple computer.  In other words bonk, It might be possible that you DID load a virus and you've been blaming Apple all along for something they never made. 
In other cases it does use 100% in rare situations when launching, or prepping a CD to be burned.

Let me make it clear, the PCs on which I found these worms masquerading as iTunes were not mine but PCs used primarily by children. I do not fall for worms. I just fix PCs infected by them.

I make no apologies for mistaking a worm maquerading as iTunes for the genuine article considering the way Quicktime behaved.

Oh, and regarding the original question, some alternative mp3 players and utilites are listed here:

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/categories/7/

[Death_Merchant]

iTune 5.0 is out.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

What's new in this version:
New Look - Streamlined design makes iTunes even easier to use.
Search Bar - Find stuff fast and refine your search with the handy new Search Bar.
Smart Shuffle - Adjust random playback to hear what you want.
Sync from Outlook - iTunes now supports iPod syncing for Outlook and Outlook Express on Windows PCs.
Playlist Folders - Organize all your playlists into folders.
Parental Controls - Limit kids’ access to the iTunes Music Store and sharing features.
Album Reviews - Browse over 1,000 album reviews.
The Complete Harry Potter - Download all six audiobooks or the Digital Box Set and add the collector’s iPod with Hogwarts crest.
iTunes for Your Mobile Phone - Sync music to the Motorola ROKR E1.