SOLUTION to "Software required for communicating with the iPod is not insta

Question

Folks, I can not take credit for this.....you should send your checks to MarkinMadison. I've included his post in it's entirety. For me, this was the Holy Grail !!
My only comment is make sure when you are in the registry that you hit the "apply" button to change and add things.
This probably won't solve everyone's problem but it clearly solved mine (and I tried all other "solutions"), as well as Mark's.
Apple: please find out who MarkinMadison is and either cut him a big check or offer him free Ipods for life.
"Solution to "Software required for communicating with the iPod is not installed"!
I battled this same problem for about 5 hours. Going through re-installations, the "5 R's", all these discussion boards. Nothing worked.
The problem is that iPodService was repeatedly crashing after minute or so. You can verify this by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete and noting that iPodService is missing from the process list (sort by image name), or by right-clicking on My Computer and selecting "Manage", then going to Services and checking out the IPodService service - if it gives you the option to "Start", then it's not running.
Here is what worked.
1. De-install iTunes and iPod (if you have the updater installed) completely by going to Start --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs. Also delete the C:\Program Files\iTunes and c:\Progam Files\iPod\bin directories. (Don't worry, this doesn't affect your saved music files.)
2. Log in as an Administrator
3. Go into the registry (note this is dangerous - you should be careful) and remove the iPod entries that the uninstaller misses.
3.1 Go to Start menu --> Run.
3.2 Type in "regedit".
3.3 Go to HKEYCLASSESROOT --> IPodService.iPodManager.
There are two keys here, iPodManager and iPodManager.1. In my case, I did not have permission to view either of these. I think this is the root cause of the problem. I think the installer can't properly update these because it doesn't have permission. So you need to change the permissions:
3.4 Right-click on IPodService.IPodManager
3.4.1 Select "Permissions..." A warning will appear saying you don't have permission, but that you can change permissions.
3.4.2 On the window that launches, click on "Advanced..."
3.4.3 Click on the "Owner" tab.
3.4.4 Select a valid account (the one you're logged in under) under "Change Owner To".
3.4.5 Click the checkbox that says: "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects."
3.4.5 Hit "OK".
3.4.6 Back on the main Permissions window, hit Add and add the same account as a valid user.
3.4.6.1 Where it says "Enter the object names to select", type in the account name, e.g. "Smith".
3.4.7 Click on the "Allow" checkboxes for "Full Control" and "Read".
3.4.8 Hit "OK".
3.5 Repeat procedure for the "iPodManager.1" key.
3.6 Now right-click and delete both of these keys.
3.7 If you can't delete, you might need to open up the keys and repeat the procedure on the sub-keys.
4. Exit out of the registry editor.
5. Re-install iTunes. I re-installed iTunes and reconnected the iPod, and everything worked.
I want to repeat that editing the registry can completely mess up your computer if you modify the wrong things, so only do this if you're comfortable, and be extremely careful.
Hopefully this helps!
Apple support people: assuming this works, please add it to your solutions page, and feel free to reimburse me for spending half of Christmas figuring this out.
Mark"
Dimension 4600   Windows XP  

Answer 1

I have also posted the same question, earlier today. I purchased two for my children and cannot get the iPod to communicate with the computer. I have the iTunes software on my system, but during the installation process I cannot click the NEXT button, once I plug the iPod cable in. The computer does not detect it. I have tried all 6 USB 2.0 ports. I even removed the Dell Jukebox and MusicMatch programs. I am not a computer savvy person - just a mom who wants to give these to my children for Christmas. This is the first "chat" site I have even registered on. I am so very frustrated. Hopefully, this can be resolved.