This is a bit technical, but obviously worth it to get your iPhone, iTouch or iPad working on Windows. Luckily for you, I have provided the files you will need and installation instructions. The SOLUTION is to take the software and service from a working machine for AMDS and manually install it. Even if you extract out the AMDS installation files, it still fails. The problem is, for some reason, iTunes won’t install the Apple Mobile Device software or service. According to other forums / posts, you might have tried extracting the Apple Mobile Device Software install files separately from the iTunes installer and installing manually that way, and it still didn’t work.

You have tried installing and re-installing iTunes already and it didn’t work.

If it does, you have a different problem.)

The Apple Mobile Device Service was not installed (to check this, click Start, Run, then type “services.msc” Look for “Apple Mobile Device”.

Run the iTunes installer to remove iTunes, then re-install iTunes.”

You receive the following error when you plug in your iPhone: “This iPhone cannot be used because the required software is not installed.

Windows 7 (or Windows 8, Windows 10) and iTunes 8, 9, 10, 11, or 12 (I tried all versions, and many commenters have indicated this issue still exists in iTunes 12).

I owe a great deal of thanks to Chris123nt for this post ( link removed, blog post no longer exists) for pointing me in the right direction.įirst off, you will know if the solution below will work for you if you have the following set-up and symptoms: If you like these posts, please follow me on Twitter.įollow searching the net and lots of forums and trying lots of things, I thought I’d post the solution that actually worked for me. Typically I have found the upgrades aren’t all that needed (except major versions like 11 to 12, of course). You can see the Release Notes of each version of iTunes and see if there is a feature that you need. If this fix has worked for you, then I recommend you stay on the iTunes version you have and don’t upgrade. ***NOTICE*** It seems every new version of iTunes breaks this fix.

If you don’t have the latest version of iTunes, you can download it here. I no longer have access to a 32-bit computer. Updated : Added files for iTunes 12.5.3, + Drivers, 64-bit.

Itune for windows 7