If you don’t have the very latest version, you might well see this dialog window: The next step is to actually launch the iTunes program. There’s a CDROM that’s included with your iPod that has the iTunes program thereon, but if you don’t want to mess with that, you can simply go to /itunes to download the latest version.

Now you really need to get a recent copy of iTunes onto your PC. Do so, and then the next time you start up, your iPod will not generate any messages of this nature. What’s happened is that the underlying drivers for this class of device have been updated by Microsoft and the changes have been automatically applied – thankfully! – but you need to reboot. The first time you plug your iPod into your PC via the included USB cable, you’ll probably see something like this: Let me take you through the steps of getting some music onto an Apple iPod with iTunes on a Windows XP system, then I’ll show you quickly why WMP can’t do the same thing.

Windows Media Player can see the iPod, but only as a hard disk, the section on the iPod where the music is stored is “hidden” and only iTunes knows how to get to it. This is a surprisingly common question for new iPod owners who are using Microsoft Windows on their PC, and the basic answer is that you must use Apple iTunes to get music onto your iPod.

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