ITunes won't remember my external drive!! Help!

I followed the instructions on the apple support page to change my iTunes music folder to my external hard drive.
For a long time, until recently, whenever I double checked on the advanced Preferences tab it said the folder was in G:\iTunes music.
Now every time I start iTunes it changes back to the default C:\my documents\my music\iTunes music. I'll change it to the G-drive again, but it doesn't stay.
How can I disable this default crap? It seems to remember to play from the library on the G-drive (I think this was because I consolidated the library), but if I want to delete an old podcast from the library and hard drive, iTunes no longer asks me to keep the files it deletes from the library only.
Any suggestions are greatly welcomed.
Thanks,
LB

OK, after searching the forum I know to hold the Shift key when starting iTunes. But I have to do this every single time???!!! That's the same as changing the preferences, practically.

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