Installing itunes 8.1 on vista home premium - please help!

Question

This is my first ever post in a forum because i can usually work it out from other peoples questions... but i'm at the end of my tether with this:
I've just bought a new Dell inspiron 1545, o.s windows vista home premium.
I'm trying to install itunes 8.1 but am getting the following problem...
I can get to the part where it starts installing, and then it gets to a certain point and just... stops.
It's not freezing or even giving me an error message, it just stops!
So i leave it to see if it will start again, and it eventually times out!
You can understand how frustrating this is because there is no rhyme or reason to WHEN it stops (sometimes 20% complete, sometimes 96% completes - and sometimes it never even starts).
I've read up on many different forums (i spent 5 hours last night on this) and it seems lots of people are having problem with itunes and vista, but none of the threads contain this actual problem.
i've tried a few suggestions: delete all history and cookies e.t.c / try opening a different browser before going to the apple site / click 'save' instead of 'run' and alter the name its saved under, but none of the above has worked.
So basically, if anyone can help, I would dearly appreciate it... it's quite possibly driving me insane.
Many thanks.

Answer 1

I also have the Mcaffe security centre so on the face of it we have very similar situations and I had not problems.
You asked what I meant about saving the installer on your PC.
When you go to the iTunes download page:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
And click on download, you should be offered the choice of running the installer or saving it. You need to click on save and then choose a folder on you PC where you want it saved. But I think you already did that.
After the installer file - iTunessetup.exe - is save on your computer, you double click on it to run it.
It's very odd that the installer fails at different stages. usually when the installation fails, it is at a specific stage and usually generates an error message.
I am afraid I am mystified. Have you had any other problems with your PC which might suggest a general problem not specific to iTunes?
The only other suggestion I have is to download a fresh copy of the installer - in case it got corrupted. You could also try using "run as administrator" to run the installer. It should be an option if you right click on the installer file.
The other thing it might be worth trying is to install it from another account, but you would need to create another administrator account if you don't a;ready have one. Or if you have another account that is not an admin account, you can temporarily promote it from the control panel>>User accounts.