2nd gen Shuffle gets unmounted by iTunes 7.5.0.20 (doesn't sync) workaround

Question

My cousin recently gave me his Shuffle because it was not working for him on his XP Pro machine. He bought a new Nano.
I have used the separate "iPod reset utility" to restore my Shuffle. The first time that iTunes sees it, when you assign a name, if I let it select songs it will sync. Every time after, it will not sync!
_When iTune recognizes the configured Shuffle, it dismounts it! Windows no longer sees it as a writable USB device and you get the no device error._
_I turned off the iPod service that launches iTunes so I could plug it in without iTunes dismounting it. I placed a .txt file on the root of the Shuffle. I keep this file open and launch iTunes. This makes it impossible for iTunes to dismount the drive._
_The drive still being mounted, iTunes can write to it again. Once you're done syncing simply close the .txt file and eject it from iTunes._
_NOTE: iTunes attempts to dismount it like mad, so you'll see it go from green (dismounted) to orange (mounted) after iTunes is launched and after every sync. Windows doesn't allow it however._
I don't know why iTunes dismounts the drive in the first place, but if it's attempting to remount for the sync it's failing. I believe this is a bug in iTunes or the way it works with Windows.
Any comments or feedback is welcome. I've tried the following fixes already. USB driver reinstall, .dll registration, iPod reset.

Answer 1

I found a more elegant solution.
I use the .txt file to keep the Shuffle mounted so I can change the Settings on it. I activate "Enable disk use" but leave all the storage to the song side. Then apply the changes.
This tells iTunes to stop trying to dismount the drive, you just need to remember to eject it (if you're going to do things properly). You then don't need the .txt file anymore and it works great!
So we've gone from making iTunes unable to dismount the drive, to just having iTunes not try in the first place.