I want my old iTunes Back.

September 14, 2008 10:08 AM

I stupidly updated and installed iTunes 8 on my Win XP Home laptop. Now some icons have turned "generic." This annoys me and I would like to go back to an earlier version of iTunes

The only icons that have turned generic are ones for MS Office (files and the icons for the actual app) and Adobe. The icons still function normally - the correct program launches, opens the document fine, etc. But I'm still quite annoyed by this. At first I thought it was a Windows update that did it and I did a system restore, which fixed the problem. Then I tried starting iTunes and got some error - can't remember what. So I downloaded an re-installed iTunes 8 again. And the icons went away again. I'd like to go back to an earlier version of iTunes without losing my playlists, listen-counts and so on. I found an old installer for iTunes 7.5 or so, but it won't let me install it. I assume I must uninstall iTunes 8 and then install 7.5 but again - am worried about losing playlists. Any advice? This will be the last time I update that program - v. 7.0 was a nightmare and v. 8 has problems too. Ugh! Thanks.

posted by nomad73 to technology (10 comments total)

Is your desktop displaying in 16 bit? Can't think why iTunes would change this setting but setting the display to 16 bit makes the icons messed up.

You can change this by right-clicking on the desktop to bring up display properties, and 'Color properties' is under the settings tab.
posted by tapeguy at 10:30 AM on September 14, 2008

Download TweakUI, install it, and click on "Repair Icons."
posted by damn dirty ape at 10:31 AM on September 14, 2008

Thanks, though I tried TweakUI / Repair icons before I did a system restore - did not help. Also checked the display properties - they are unchanged at 32 bit. Not all icons are screwed up - just MS Office and Adobe.
posted by nomad73 at 10:40 AM on September 14, 2008

Try increasing your icon cache size (instructions here) and then delete the IconCache.db file from your profile directory (usually \Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data).

You may need to reboot after you've done this but your icons should be corrected.

If you wish to backup your playlists, then you need both the iTunes Music Library.xml and the iTunes Library.itl files - although it is the latter file which contains the playlist information.

Mine is located in \Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes. Yours may be different.

If iTunes 8 changed the format of those files then I'm afraid you'll be SOL unless you have an older version lying around.
posted by mr_silver at 11:04 AM on September 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

You'd probably be better off taking mr_silver's advice for getting your library & playlist files and uninstalling version 8, then installing version 7. Itunes 8 has known issues on Windows that are causing the blue screen of death, and the 'genius' feature is crap so you are better off with the older version.

Not sure how Apple is the only company still capable of writing software that causes fatal system crashes on the relatively stable XP platform.
posted by mattholomew at 11:28 AM on September 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

thanks very much - i'll give mr silver's advice a try.

yeah and why can't iTunes just do an update instead of the user having to download the entire package and install it? ugh!
posted by nomad73 at 11:59 AM on September 14, 2008

yeah and why can't iTunes just do an update instead of the user having to download the entire package and install it?

I suspect it's updating additional stuff like Webkit, which drives the iTMS.

the 'genius' feature is crap

I rolled my eyes, too, at this new feature, and the store recommendations are annoying (and can be easily turned off), but the playlist creation (pick a song and click the icon at the bottom of your window) is surprisingly good.
posted by mkultra at 12:07 PM on September 14, 2008

You can download old versions of iTunes here.

As for the icons, there are a few things you can try.

1. Right click on the icon-->Properties-->Shortcuts-->Change Icon-->Browse, find the icon you want, then select Open and OK to apply.

2. Go to Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes, then Folder Options. From there, choose the File Types tab. Find the file type you need to change, then click Advanced. In the Edit File Type box, click Change Icon, Browse, navigate to the new icon you want to use, select it, and then click Open and OK to apply.

3. You can try a free program like Folder Icon Changer or WinIcon Customizer to tweak the icons also.

Good luck.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 11:17 PM on September 14, 2008

Filehippo is also a good source for finding old versions of iTunes. It is a bit more up-to-date (7.7.1.11 - oooo!)
posted by puritycontrol at 4:58 PM on September 16, 2008

in case anyone stumbles upon this ... I uninstalled iTunes 8.0, installed 7.7.1.11 but it would not start because the .itl file "had been updated by a newer version if iTunes." Blah. Also, the icons had not returned.

It wouldn't bother me so much if it was just the app shortcut icons that were gone (and thus easy to replace using one of the suggestions above) but it's also all the Word/Excel/PDF files associated with those programs that are now icon-less. It just drives me crazy.

I tried doing another system restore but there are no restore points far enough away that would work. Argh. So, now I'm stuck again with iTunes 8 and no icons.
posted by nomad73 at 6:32 PM on September 29, 2008