ITunes stuck on "Accessing iTunes Store"

Question

I posted in reply to a thread of complaints about this on the "iTunes for Mac" side but realized my error only afterwards and so am posting this here instead/as well; apologies for repetition, I have no idea what forum etiquette here is.
I'm running Windows 7, downloaded the latest version of iTunes available on the website. Whenever I try to open iTunes I get a dialogue box that says "Accessing iTunes Store" and a loading bar that just goes on and on indefinitely (I let it go on for an hour as an experiment). I can click nowhere else on the iTunes program except the "Stop" button on the dialogue box but then it just says "Canceling..." and goes on doing that indefinitely until I force-quit. I cannot access any part of the iTunes menu while it is unsuccessfully attempting to access the iTunes Store. I've tried to open the program with "Run as Administrator" with the exact same result of teeth-gnashing failure. The program is therefore completely non-functional and while I can still charge my old iPod, I cannot use iTunes to access any of the content ... which is unfortunate because the iPod itself is bugging out in an unrelated series of problems and probably needs a software update or a lobotomy or something. I've attempted to uninstall and reinstall iTunes a couple of times now with the latest version, with no success there either. I'm not new to this program - I've had my old iPod Nano for years and have used iTunes steadily, if begrudgingly, since about 2007 without serious problems, have used the Store, etc.. This new "Accessing iTunes Store" is a recent development and it is crippling my ability to use the program or the hardware. Oh, and yes, it's the same result with the iPod is physically plugged in to the computer or not.
So how can I go about fixing this? Any help could be appreciated before my faithful-if-slightly-dumbfounded iPod takes a one-way trip to the electronics recycling facility and another company gets to have my money.

Answer 1

after trying everything I could find for 2 days, including turning on and off my firewall, my anti-virus program, resetting the winsock, authorize, deauthorize, and on and on I FINALLY saw one post by a guy that uninstalled Real Player and it fixed his problem.   That was a new suggestion, so I tried it and guess what?   IT WORKED.  Thank GOD!!!   This is a brand new computer so I was really frustrated.    I am running Windows 7 64 bit.   Hope the Real Player suggestion helps some other people.