HT1527 iTunes does not detect my iphone 4s but it shows in Windows

Question

I just purchased an iPhone 4s & a New iPad. Neither one are being recognised on my iTunes. I get a message saying that my Apple Mobile Device Support & iTunes are from an earlier version & need to be removed & re-installed.I have version 10.6.3 so I don't know how I can get any more recent. I have updated my McAffe Security & Firewall and have uninstalled & reinstalled ALL of the Apple componants & iTunes 4 times now. I still keep getting this message. I even stopped & then restarted the AMDS in the control panel & made sure it was set to Automatic Start.
This is really frustrating! I would appreciate any help anyone can give me. I have Windows 7 Ultimate OS. Thanks!

Answer 1

I somehow got 10.6 to download. I'm not even sure how I did it. I did a System Restore to an earlier point and everything was fine - go figure?? Now I have a new problem - 10.7. That trick didn't work with this update. I am seriosly considering a new computer, a MAC. I figure it can't be nearly this much trouble if everything is made by the same company, oplus my current PC is 6 years old!
Since I am trying one last ditch effort to get this to work before spending $2000, I might as well see if you might have a solution so here goes:
After downloading and installing Itunes 10.7 from Apple, I have no  Mobile Device Support (itunes wouldn't update from 10.6 so I had to do a complete uninstall and then download & reinstall). After a lot of searching on line and on different Forums I found a thread and followed the instructions for a standalone AMDS install using WinRAR.
I did not have an option to remove or repair since the file wasn't on my pc to begin with so it just started to run an install. It looked like it was going to work but just as it was getting to the end an error message came up that said:
"Apple Mobile Device Support wasn't installed on your computer. The installer encountered errors before Apple Mobile Device Support could be configured. Your system has not been modified.
To try these operations at a later time, please run the installer again. Click Finish to exit."
I then went to the Itunes.exe and tried to Repair, hoping that it might replace the missing Apple Mobile Device Support file. I received an error message saying:
"Service Apple Mobile Device (Apple Mobile Device) failed to start. Verify you have sufficient priveleges to start system service" There were three choices, Abort, Retry & Ignore.
Before doing anything I went down to Start, Search, Services and opened the Apple Mobile Device. I clicked "Start"  and got   Error 2: The system cannot find the file specified.
At this point I went back to the previous error message, hit Abort and continued to look for answers. Mind you I had to uninstall & reinstall Itunes about 3-4 times before I figured out if I didn't uninstall iCloud I couldn't reinstall iTunes. Then I also tried something else you had suggested to someone that involved downloading Autoruns, but nothing with that did any good. The only things under Winsock were Bonjour & Windows. I looked under the Services tab & found Apple Mobile Device highlighted in Yellow and it said File Not Found.
I have looked at all of the normal support articles from Apple Support and been on the phone w/ Apple. I actually had a supervisor remotely log in to my computer and he couldn;t figure it out but this was before trying the standalone AMDS install and He didn't suggest that.
I have a rarely used netbook (that I am trying to sell) running Window 7 Home, so I thought I would try the update on that & it worked fine. At this point I am really confused so I am thinking what is the difference - well, as I said I rarely use the netbook, therefore all of the Windows updates had not been installed yet. (I use my PC daily so updates are installed as soon as they are downloaded) I updated itunes before installing the windows updated on my netbook so I had a eureeka moment and started to uninstall all the updates from my pc that I didn't have on the netbook. Well, there were about 25-30 updates to uninstall, 2 hrs & 5 updates later I figured there had to be a better way. It would take days at this rate. I don't know a better way and a system restore doesnt work because the updates span a couple of months.
If you have any suggestions or ideas I welcome them. This has been the most frustrating thing I have been through. Like I said, I am seriously ready to bag the whole computer & get a Mac that already has the current version of iTunes on it.
Thanks!