ITunes 10.3 takes a while to sync my iPhone

Question

Hey everybody, I'm a Windows XP, iPhone 4 CDMA user. Over the past couple of days my iPhone has been giving me problems after I restored it. I was on the latest version of iTunes 10.2 and I got the 10.3 update, and then as soon as I downloaded it, my phone wasn't being seen by iTunes. I put it into DFU mode to try to restore it, it would then show up in my iTunes and then as it was "preparing to restore iPhone", it would say "it can't be found". I ended up trying a few more times with no luck, then I went onto another computer and it restored succesfully. However, now that I'm on 10.3, my iTunes takes FOREVER to transfer music. I also tried to transfer a copy of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" and that took about 2-3 minutes to sync over, however when I transfered the video for the same song, it took about a minute or so, regardless of the 60+ mb size difference. The former is also true syncing apps that have less than 20 mbs of data in them. I then tried to transfer music from my sister's library to my iPhone, and that only took 5-10 secs that it would normally take. I thought maybe it might be iTunes. I went back on my computer and it still took that extra time with it.
For comparison, the other day I also sync'd my iPod Classic with my iTunes library, and for having about 77 gb worth of data on an external hard drive, that only took a few hours.
Right now, I'm uninstalling every Apple component I can from my computer. I'll install 10.3.1 and see if I have better luck. I'd like to see if I can find an installer of iTunes 10.2 and see if it's either my phone or iTunes in general. I know that's never prefered, but my options are kinda limited at this point.
I know a couple Apple people aren't exactly going to like that, but honestly, never release a beta without keeping the stable RC too.

Answer 1

Syncing shouldn't trouch you photos unless you have photos in a Photo Library album.  These would be photos that were synced to your phone from your computer.  If you do have any, you'll need to use an app like PhotoSync to transfer them to your computer prior to syncing.
If you prefer to backup your camera roll photos prior to syncing, open iTunes and go to Preferences>Devices and check "Prevent...from syncing automatically".  Then connect your phone to your computer and import them as explained here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083.
Then, to minimize data loss, follow the steps in this user tip: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141.  To follow the steps, first open iTunes and go to View>Show Sidebar.  Also, Transfer Purchases is now located in File>Devices.