2009-12-28: iTunes missing settings for importing and burning CDs and DVDs

Apple make some really nice hardware and maybe the software they create for the Mac is good, but their Windows developers must be complete morons. Although I think iTunes for Windows is probably the second-worst piece of software ever to be released, I do occasionally use it when I have to transfer music to my iPod. For a while now, it had been throwing up this error message an error message about how "the registry settings used by the iTunes drivers for importing and burning CDs and DVDs are missing".

Since I'd never actually use the piece of utter crap that is iTunes for anything other than transferring music and don't even want to think about using this rubbish for ripping, much less burning CDs and DVDs, I ignored the message. Unfortunately, the idiots that developed this crud didn't think of adding a "never bother me about this again" checkbox to the dialog box. Clicking "OK" allows iTunes to start, but when you start iTunes again, it'll complain, again. Well, duh, I didn't bother fixing it because I don't care about the problem! That said, even if I had tried reinstalling iTunes, web searches suggest that that doesn't work anyway.

Eventually it was the frickin' dialog box that annoyed me into "fixing" the problem, cursing under my breath and imagining how to do painful things to Apple developers. Anyway, the solution is to:

1. Start the registry editor
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. Create a new Multi-String value
4. Give it the value GEARAspiWDM (followed by a newline, so press Enter)

Or, you can save yourself the trouble and just use the registry file I've created for you.

Why iTunes doesn't just ask the user whether it should restore the registry settings (or better yet: just do it) or at least has the courtesy to stop complaining when the user doesn't want to bother fixing the problem is beyond me.

Update (2010-01-04): How come they're smart/considerate enough to complain only once when you uninstall that other piece of rubbish that comes with iTunes, "Bonjour"? (In)consistency ftw!