Habitually Good

For the longest time I was using WinAmp for my mp3 needs. I used to be a fanatic about maintaining the ID3 tags on my music. I switched over to iTunes (back then) for one reason only – whenever I would change an ID3 tag, it would automatically rearrange my file structure to reflect this change (something I used to do manually in WinAmp). Anyway, all was good for some time. But as I have upgraded my iTunes over the years, it’s getting worse. And today was the last straw. Inadvertently, I have been avoiding an upgrade for some time, but I finally succumbed to it.

I am totally distraught: iTunes (out-of-the-box) spins off 7 different processes when it runs. It is crazy. I am guy who like to keep his hardware performing to the best at all times, and so I check my Task Manager multiple times a day. And I cringe when I see all these tasks running.

Here’s a list of what all runs when I start iTunes:

1. iTunes.exe – of course this will run, I can’t complain against this.
2. iTunesHelper.exe – I could do some R&D and find out why iTunes needs a helper, but shouldn’t they build it into iTunes?
3. iPodService.exe – it’s always running, even if you don’t own an iPod (I do own some, but that’s not the point).
4. mDNSResponder.exe – this is something called the Bonjour Service that iTunes uses to share music. Who said I wanted to? It never asked me. Why are these things turned on by default.
5. distnoted.exe – Apple Mobile Device Helper – what the heck is iPodService.exe for in that case?
6. AppleMobileDeviceHelper.exe – huh, then what the heck is distnoted.exe?
7. AppleMobileDeviceService.exe – I am getting a little lost now.

And don’t even get me started on the installation of QuickTime as part of iTunes installer. I simply hate that. With all the Apple philosophy about usability and user experience, this is very hard to swallow.

How did I fix this?

Well, I still continue to use iTunes (too much work to try and locate an alternative which will work for me). I tried to reduce the pain a little, but that didn’t work out too well. You see, three of these processes above are controlled by Windows Services that iTunes installs (another pain point for me).

I went to my Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services, and disabled these services (iPodService, Bonjour Service, and Apple Mobile Device). However, even now when I launch iTunes, only number 4 and 7 above don’t launch, everything else does. But now I have to contend with an error on iTunes setup which says that Bonjour Service is not running.

I hate iTunes.

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