Revert back to iTunes 10 from iTunes 11 (Windows Edition)

[UPDATE 2015-01-17] New Article: How to make iTunes 12 look and act more like iTunes 10

If you’re looking for the Mac OS X downgrade steps, please check out this Randosity article. After giving iTunes 11 a fair shake, I have come to the conclusion that this version is so hopelessly broken that I just can’t deal with it any longer. So, I’ve decided to roll back to iTunes 10.

The iTunes 11 botch

It is very obvious that Tim Cook (and crew) are systematically undoing every ideal that Jobs held for Apple. iTunes 11 is no exception. With its missing menus, unnecessary drop down menus, haphazard interface, missing Radio link (well, not missing, but moved to a hard-to-find area), huge graphical album listings and no easy way to set art on music any more, the whole iTunes 11 release is one big botch. Well, the last straw came today when I tried importing a CD. It imported fine until I stopped it because I realized the import settings were wrong. When I attempted to restart the import, iTunes 11 would only begin at the next track and refused to replace the existing, something that iTunes 10 does quite nicely. When I put a second CD into my second drive, the whole app locked up. Then, I killed it with task manager. On startup, it proceeded to lock up Windows and prevent me from working with the desktop. I’ve never had this issue with iTunes 10. Worse, playlist metadata is now stupidly globally linked. Meaning, if you uncheck a song in one playlist and it exists in other playlists, it unchecks the song there too. So, now checkboxes are global settings across the whole of iTunes. That’s just some of the underwhelming, but major changes in iTunes 11. I’ve had it with iTunes 11 and all of its stupid new quirks.

Rewriting that much of an app is really a gamble and this is one gamble didn’t pay off. I’ve heard some people seem to like some of the changes. I’m not one of them. Seriously, what was the benefit to changing the interface that radically for no end-user payoff? I mean, at least give us users some kind of a bone to endure that kind of radical change. There just isn’t any reward for dealing with this massive of a change. All we get is whole lot of learning curve, fighting through bugs, dealing with stupidity in UI design all without any substantial ease of use improvements.

Restoring iTunes 10

Well, I finally made the decision to revert back to iTunes 10. The first problem was locating the most recent version of iTunes 10. Thankfully, Apple Support keeps older iTunes versions online (or at least, they’re there now). So, if you are thinking of reverting back to iTunes 10, you might want to grab your copy now before they take it down. But, keep in mind that once you’ve upgraded to iTunes 11, your ‘iTunes Library.itl’ (What are the iTunes library files?) file will be updated to the latest format which is incompatible with iTunes 10. So, you will have to restore back to an older version of library.itl or possibly face rebuilding your entire media library from files on disk.

Steps to revert on Windows:

• Download iTunes 10 from the above link
• Start->Control Panel->Programs and Features
• Make note of the iTunes 11 ‘Installed On’ date.
• Uninstall iTunes 11
• Install iTunes 10
  • Don’t start iTunes 10 at this point or you will receive an error stating that library.itl was created by a newer version. Continue on with the steps below.
• Go to C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes
• Rename ‘iTunes Library.itl’ to ‘iTunes library.iTunes11.itl’ (in case you want to revert back using this file)
  • Note the space in the name
• Copy the most recent backup of ‘iTunes Library.itl’ or of a date just before you installed iTunes 11
  • Copy C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes\Previous iTunes Libraries\library.<date>.itl to
  • C:\Users\<your user>\Music\iTunes\library.itl
  • If you don’t have a backup copy, you can simply delete ‘iTunes Library.itl’, but you’ll probably have to rebuild your media library from scratch. Deleting this file doesn’t delete your music, it will just remove iTunes’ reference to it.
  • If you have a ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’, you may be able to import that to rebuild your library more easily.
  • You should regularly export your library as ‘iTunes Music Library.xml’ anyway in case iTunes ever gets corrupted.
• Once you have iTunes 10 installed and ‘iTunes Library.itl’ recovered, you can start up iTunes 10. Assuming the ‘iTunes Library.itl’ was a backup created by iTunes 10, it should start just fine. If it doesn’t, keep recovering older ‘iTunes Library.<date>.itl’ backup files until you find one that works.

Now you’ll want to review your library to ensure that any new music you’ve bought or added is there. If not, you’ll have to add the folders of that music to this library.

Note, if you have changed where your library.itl resides, you will have to rename it there instead. If you haven’t modified iTunes in this way, library.itl will be in the above location (or whichever drive is your Windows boot drive letter).  Simply deleting the file, iTunes may be smart enough to pull its most recent backup copy, but I haven’t tested this.  So, I’d rather choose my library.itl from the backups.

Additional note, you can’t tell which version of iTunes generated the library.itl file. So, you will need to review your backup library.<date>.itl files and locate a dated file that’s before you installed iTunes 11. If you don’t remember the date you installed iTunes, you may be able to find the install date in Control Panel->Programs and Features.

Mac Note: that with the exception of the paths, the basics of these instructions may apply to MacOS X. I’ve just not reverted iTunes on MacOS X as yet. However, you’re in luck, Danny has produced a rollback article for Mac OS X here on Randosity for Mac OS X users.

Apple’s progressive slide

There are some technology changes that Apple makes that work. There are some that don’t. Part of the problem is a quality control issue. Steve Jobs was a stickler for high quality control to the point of perfectionism. This is a good thing in that Apple’s quality was always near perfect when Jobs was on duty. Unfortunately, since Tim Cook has taken over, that quality level has dramatically slid down. The iPad 3 was the first example, then OS X Lion, then iOS 6, Mountain Lion and now iTunes 11.  I won’t even get into that thing they’re calling an iPod nano.  I still shutter to think that someone at Apple thought the new taller iPod nano would actually have a real world use case over the ‘watch’ version? I should just avoid the obvious discussion about the whole taller nano debacle.

I’m not sure what the Apple engineers are thinking at this point, but one thing is crystal clear. There is no one at Apple driving quality control either at a software or hardware level. I doubt that Steve Jobs would have ever let iTunes 11 see the light of day the way it is now. The changes were far too drastic requiring a huge learning curve without any real benefit to the user. I mean seriously, what did Apple hope to accomplish by making this drastic of a software change?

For example, if Apple were planning on introducing a Netflix-like streaming service and iTunes needed the software to support this, I can full well understand implementing a needed software change to support this. If they were planning on allowing some new advanced technological approach to playlists, like Facebook style sharing of them, then maybe a change might be required. But, making a change just to make change isn’t useful or wanted. Complicating the interface and moving things to unnecessary new areas is not wanted. Users don’t want to have to relearn an interface just because someone decides to haphazardly move things around with no rhyme or reason.

Analysts amazingly silent?

I’ve yet to see any analysts making any calls on this or any other Apple quality issues. Yet, it’s crystal clear. Apple is not the Apple it once was. I’m sure the analysts are just biding their time to allow their clients to get their money out of Apple before making word of the problems that are just beginning to face Apple. In fact, it’s the same problem that now faces Sony. Sony used to be a top notch, high quality and innovative technology company who could basically do no wrong. Then, something happened at Sony and they’ve not been able to produce anything innovative in years. Apple is clearly on its way to becoming the next Sony. It’s also inevitable that without hiring someone (or several people) of the caliber of Steve Jobs that has both the technological vision combined with high levels of quality control, Apple doesn’t have a future.

As a software developer, you can’t just throw out any change to the wind and hope it succeeds. No, you have to bring in test groups to review the changes and find out how the average user responds to the changes. Apple shouldn’t have any trouble putting testing groups together. But, it appears that iTunes 11 did not get user tested at all. It’s a shame, too. iTunes 11 has some cool features, but those are just completely eclipsed by the poor quality of the software and the stupid design decisions.

Can Apple recover?

Yes, but it’s going to take someone (or several people) to bring quality control back to Apple and someone who is willing to say, ‘No, that sucks. Try again’.. just someone should have to said about iTunes 11 before it was ever released.