IPhone OS 2.2 on iPod Touch no longer behaves nicely with iTunes under Win

Question

Please note the use of the phrase "no longer behaves" as opposed to the phrase "doesn't behave"; this is not a complaint about the iPod Touch not working with Windows for the first time.
I submitted this topic to a developer forum as a consequence of having upgraded to device OS 2.2 - as required for the use of the SDK for iPhone OS 2.2. An Apple person at the developer side of Apple suggested I discuss this over here - you'd think Apple people would talk to each other and share their observations across corporate divisions, but, I guess not. Direct copies of that development forum topic are repeated here... unfortunately the developer forums seem to have disappeared into thin air... here's a link to the topic instead; hopefully the dev forum will reappear soon:
<https://devforums.apple.com/message/15941#15941>

Answer 1

Here's the original dev forum topic texts - with some editing to remove developer forum context (and yes, I've followed the steps to check that Windows drivers and services are installed and running):
I've had my iPod Touch for over a year now, faithfully upgrading to the latest available software versions, naively believing it is is best to do so.
Ever since I upgraded the Touch to OS 2.2 I've noticed that it constantly, but with no consistency related to timing, tries to synchronize when connected to my Windows machine running iTunes 8.0.2.20. It does this with no disconnection/reconnection of the USB connector. It does this whether I set the check box to prevent automatically synchronizing or not. Often iTunes will complain that it cannot communicate with the device suggesting that I reconnect and restore the device (ya right!). Or it will complain that it can't recognize the device or can't find a Disk(!). Occasionally, the iPod Touch just reboots.
I have tried replacing the USB connector, on the off chance that I damaged the cable after upgrading the software to OS 2.2, but this doesn't change the behaviour either.
I had a similar experience with my iPhone, also running OS 2.2. I now only ever leave my iPhone connected to my MacBook, where this kind of sporadic re-synchronization behaviour does not occur. And when I connect my iPod Touch to my MacBook, for downloading developed apps, it does not behave badly like it does when connected to my Windows machine.
I realize that I could just move my entire music library over to my MacBook (after I spend another $250 increasing my disk capacity or adding an external drive) but I'm resisting because I shouldn't have to (so there!
Does anybody else out there see this behaviour. Or does nobody use iTunes on Windows?
Please, no snarky comments about how bad Windows is. After all, if it is that bad why would Apple support an iTunes application that runs under Windows?
... sometime later ...
For some reason this bad behaviour is now happening about once every 30 seconds. Oh wait.. now my iPod Touch is rebooting again <sigh>.
Even though I do not have "Open iTunes when this iPod is connected" checked and I do have "Disable automatic synching for iPhones and iPods" checked, iTunes still starts up when this occurs, and consumes its usual 100% CPU while it starts up... very annoying.
If it hangs around long enough for me to press the "Sync" button I am usually able to complete the synchronization operation. Starting now, I'm going to just recharge my iPod Touch from the walll socket instead of my Windows machine's USB connection.