I wouldn’t normally post a rant article on my blog – but iTunes – grrrrr. I really wish I wasn’t forced to use iTunes to sync my Outlook Contacts and Calendar with my iPhone 3GS.

For the last few days I’ve been unable to sync my Outlook 2007 Contacts with my iPhone – and it was driving me nuts.

I tried reinstalling iTunes 9.1, tried the Edit –> Preferences –> Devices – Reset Sync History option. I tried checking all my recurring dates in Outlook – since this was reported in the past as a problem.

In the end – the answer was to roll back to iTunes 9.03 – by doing the following.

As per http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1923 …

Use the Control Panel to uninstall iTunes and related software components in the following order:

1. iTunes
2. QuickTime
3. Apple Software Update
4. Apple Mobile Device Support
5. Bonjour
6. Apple Application Support (iTunes 9 or later)

I then deleted ALL of the Apple and Apple Computer folders in all of the user profiles – under

<UserName>\AppData\Local
<UserName>\AppData\LocalLow
<UserName>\AppData\Roaming

Reboot my Windows 7 PC – and then downloaded a copy of iTunes 9.0.3 from here… http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.php

Installed 9.03 - rebooted again – and presto – it worked.

You’ve wasted nearly a day of my time Apple – which is worth more to me than your phone and your terrible software.