Possible conflict between Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and iTunes (and possibly Sims 3)

Short version: iTunes 10.2.2.14 wouldn't sync or restore my iPod (3rd generation touch) after I installed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (KB976932) on May 28, 2011. Uninstalling the service pack made the iPod useable again. I don't yet have a solution to allow the two to coexist.

Blow-by-blow: On Sunday I was heading out to do my errands, only to notice that my iPod thought it had no songs on it. Weird. When I got back home I tried to sync it, only to have iTunes tell me it couldn't detect the iPod and it needed to be restored. I was rather wary based on my past experiences with restoring this iPod, but I didn't see a choice.

As I'd suspected, it got stuck in recovery mode, giving error code 6 every single time (unlike my previous attempts, when it would change it up a bit. I tried all the usual stuff - restarting iTunes, rebooting the computer, switching USB ports, switching cables, updating USB drivers (they were already up to date), reinstalling iTunes, turning off security software. When I looked up error code 6, it said the problem might be with a registry entry called TCPWindowSize, but the regedit search function found no such entry. The iTunes diagnostic found everything fine, except that it claimed it couldn't detect the iPod.

I ended up going to the Apple store (lesson learned: get an appointment. The schedule looks empty during the day, but fills up after work) and getting them to restore my iPod. But then when I got back home and tried to load it up with music again, it wouldn't work. It kept freezing only a few songs in (e.g. 20 or 30 songs into my nearly-5,000 song playlist), then telling me it couldn't load the song in question because of an "unspecified error" (with error codes 0xE800801C, 0xE800400C, or 0xE800400B), then telling me it couldn't read the disk of the iPod. I set about removing variables, but the best I could get it to do is load 48 songs by a single artist, which completely defeats the purpose of an iPod. I tried restoring an older backup of the iPod, but it froze around 85% of the way in. The iTunes diagnostic said that iTunes Helper was not running, despite the fact that I've never disabled it on this computer. Restarting and reinstalling iTunes didn't help. Googling around the problem, I found suggestions to disable certain USB controllers in the Device Manager, but that only made my USB ports stop working. Another googled-up suggestion was that my music might not me loading because my iPod was restored on a Mac at the Apple store and I have a PC at home, so I held my breath and restored it again. And, once again, was faced with error code 6. I think this is the point where I broke out the wine.

With visions of having to schlep back to the Apple store with my oversized PC laptop in tow and insisting that they get my iPod to sync MY music, I finally remembered that the beginning of these problems correlated with a large Windows update. So I went back into Windows Update and uninstalled recent updates one by one, trying to restore the iPod in between. After I removed Service Pack 1, my iPod finally restored successfully, and allowed me to reload all my songs by restoring a previous backup.

The next logical step would be to disable automatic syncing in iTunes and then reinstall the service pack, but I haven't gotten there yet.

In general, this little iPod has given me more trouble than any other piece of technology I've ever used in the past 30 years. But I suspect this problem might have been with the service pack, because of two other things that happened at the same time.

1. Sims 3 had an update while all this was going on, so I installed it, but the installer crashed just before it finished. I was caught in limbo between the old version and the new version, and had to reinstall the game from scratch.

2. Before I uninstalled the service pack, I tried to do a system restore. That didn't work either due to "an unspecified error (0x80070005)."

I can't be certain that these two problems were due to the service pack because I didn't troubleshoot thoroughly enough to eliminate variables, but as it stands I'm hesitant to reinstall the service pack. At the moment I'm just glad my ipod works (I get edgy and stimmy without music in my ears, and having to go to sensory-overload places like malls and Apple stores makes it worse), but I'll update if I figure out anything new.