[iTunes] I hate iTunes 8

[Ken Stevens]

Hi Becca:

When you start iTunes hold down the shift key.  This should give you a  
dialogue box
allowing you to "create a new library" or to "choose a library".   
Select the choose library option.
look in your Music folder for a folder "Previous iTunes Libraries".   
Try to open the
most recent.  If this doesn't work you may have to open the backup,  
even if it is a couple of months old,
it should have all or most of your podcasts.  For further reference:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iTunesWin/8.0/en/15502.html

As for staying up until 3am to download podcasts -
Change your computer clock to 3am
Start iTunes and hit the refresh button at the bottom right of the  
podcasts window.
This tells iTunes you want to download every day at 3am.
Reset the computer clock to the correct time.

Is your computer set to reboot if there is a power glitch during the  
night?  You may have a problem
with your hard drive.

Back up your iTunes library maybe once a week.

Ken



On Jan 8, 2009, at 10:36 AM, Becca wrote:

> for the record, I'm on a PC running Windows XP.
>
> I stayed up til 3 last night so I could set iTunes to download my  
> podcasts in the middle of the night - we have satellite internet,  
> and get penalized for downloads during the day by having them drop  
> us back to dialup (or slower) speeds for 24 hours after we download  
> more than a certain (very low) amount during 24 hours. The time  
> between 3 and 6 am doesn't count.
>
> when I got up this am to check, iTunes was unresponsive, and I had  
> to completely reboot my computer. Now, when I open iTunes, it opens  
> as if a totally new download, with the Genius bar turned on and no  
> library attached - and I had a huge lot of playlists with audiobooks  
> and music! I can't turn off the Genius bar, and when I try to run  
> the diagnostics, iTunes freezes again, and I have to forcibly end it  
> using ctrl-alt-del.
>
> looks like I"m going to have to totally uninstall iTunes and  
> reinstall it... again, at 3am, to avoid the download hit. What a pain!
>
> does anyone know of a safe site to download old versions of iTunes?  
> I didn't have half these problems with iTunes 7 that I'm having with  
> 8. I know there's an apple site where one can download old versions  
> of iTunes, but I can't find it by googling.
>
> -becca
>